


I will love you if I never see you again

by quantumoddity



Series: Jupeter Dads AU [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fatherhood, Healing, Juno learns to be a dad, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Violence, Other, Personal Growth, Post Season 1, Pre Season 3, Reconciliation, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Trans Peter Nureyev, Trans Pregnancy, Unexpected Visitors, on short notice, referenced but not mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Juno deeply regrets leaving Peter Nureyev in that motel room.He told himself if was necessary. He told himself he was needed elsewhere. He told himself he was a hero.Now, one year on, he is depressed, lonely and struggling. But Peter Nureyev is about to come back into his life, despite his own best judgement, and show him that their night together was more significant than Juno knows.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Series: Jupeter Dads AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824808
Comments: 75
Kudos: 255





	1. Chapter 1

He wondered how much of his life he would spend taking footsteps that lead away from where he wanted to go. 

Every time his heel hit the pavement, he would label himself again, burden himself with something fresh. They piled on top of each other, filling the inside of his skull until it ached. 

_ Coward. Selfless. Idiot. Selfish. Heartless. Hero. Needed. Broken.  _

That more than anything else. How else to describe a person who was walking away from last night, choosing a cold and lonely dawn and a cold and empty future over everything currently fading into a sickly orange light above his head and someone to share it with. He couldn’t bear to look up and see those stars, not just because he still wasn’t used to seeing them through one eye, shifted in a way he knew they shouldn’t be, blurry and further away than he knew they really were. He was scared to turn his face to them and see the possibilities he was crushing under his boot with every step. Other planets, other worlds, other people he could be. And the two hearts he was breaking, all outlined in the stars like a needlepoint.

So he kept his eye to the pavement beneath him and continued on.

It was colder than it had any right to be, the warmth that hadn’t started as his own leeching away through his coat. It was the kind of cold that made him think he wouldn’t ever get warm again as he tried to force his mind to focus and figure out how he was going to get home. 

And then back to normal. Back to who he’d been before. 

The thought was the last straw needed to send the tears tumbling down his deliberately expressionless face, dripping from his chin to fall to the pavement below, as pointless and fruitless as rain on Mars.

  
  


He heard. Of course he heard. 

And yet when he opened his eyes, he still hoped and he was duly punished for it, heart breaking all over again when there was no one in the bed next to him. Just rumpled sheets that had once curved around a human body and freshly emptied space. 

He didn’t cry. That wasn’t how he’d been raised. Crying brought noise, attention, commotion. Crying was unprofessional. Potentially messy emotions were meant to be folded up small and filed away somewhere dark and deep for some unspecified later date, a time where he could be himself and didn’t have to be someone else. Whenever that would be. 

So he didn’t cry. Instead he stared down at his own hands and told himself he was not thinking about where they had been just a few short hours ago, what they had discovered and held, what beautiful things they had moulded, along with a second pair of hands that were now just ghosts of warmth on cooling sheets. He sat and he stared, gaze hard and level until it began to blur. In that moment he lost sight of his clever, clever hands and realised how much hurt was inside him. Yawning, cavernous depths of it in his narrow chest, so easy to fall into and never be seen again. 

But he couldn’t let that happen.

He told himself who he was, who he had made himself into after so much hard work. He spoke his name into the fading darkness and told himself what that meant. That was the only thing that got him out of the bed, onto his feet, back into his clothes. Back out into the world. 

But under the veneer of his sharp smile and neat hair and nice clothes, he felt sick. Sick with anger, sick with a desperate need to get off this godforsaken planet and never see it’s dust and mountains and broken promises ever again, sick with grief above all else. 

And he stayed sick for some time. 

  * A Year Later -



Juno would say he’d had a bad day at the office. But that would imply that he’d had something that could be called a good day sometime in recent memory. 

But they’d all been the same. Stumble in after very little sleep and no breakfast, beyond what had made his breath smell of stale alcohol. Give no answer to Rita’s hopeful greeting but to growl whether any new cases had come in. Look through the painfully anemic list and curl his lip at every one, muttering that they were pedestrian, boring, stale after each one. Slump listlessly in his chair and try to decide which he would take, just to get Rita off his back. Get sweaty and shivery at the thought of actually picking up the comms and speaking to a client. Realise it had gotten dark. Go home with no new cases, no progress made and a pitying look from Rita that made him want to scream. 

So, yeah. A bad day. A long, long string of bad days that had no end that he could see. 

And somehow the worst part of each one was walking home. 

He would have stayed at the office if Rita would let him but she firmly ejected him at the end of every day, insisting she wasn’t working in the same space as someone who didn’t shower. Only the fact that she wouldn’t leave until he did actually got his feet out of the door.

It was a typical chilly Martian night, air stale and cloying as it always was under the shields. Juno always felt like he was in a terrarium, something caught by powers far above him and set down in an artificial habitat to be viewed as a source of entertainment. But, then again, it was nice not to die of radiation poisoning. 

The bottled weather and stale air wasn’t the reason Juno hated walking home. It was that walking wasn’t enough of a distraction. He couldn’t figure out how to listen to things on his comms and was too proud to ask Rita, watching the people walking past was likely to get him punched in the face for looking at someone funny. Just a long, lonely walk with just his own head for company, nothing to look ahead to but a miserable night in his cramped little apartment drinking himself to sleep. A sad, lost lady alone with the shadows in the corners, thinking if he stayed still and quiet then his memories wouldn’t find him. 

And he would feel that heaviness in his chest, like his lungs were turning to concrete, the heaviness that came with the words in his head. 

This _ is what you left him for?  _

He’d thought Hyperion needed him, like he was some hero from a bad North Star stream. No smarter than he’d been at nine years old again with tin foil wrapped around his skinny chest, pretending to be Andromeda. In real life, heroes could shoot straight. Heros had two eyes. Heroes didn’t bellow at their secretaries for problems they’d caused themselves. Heroes weren’t afraid of anything, much less the idea of a quiet moment. 

A car went past closer than it should, roaring and sudden and shaking him out of his thoughts. He didn’t know when his breathing had gotten heavy or sweat had begun dripping between his shoulder blades despite the cool night. He ran his fingers through his hair, told himself to snap out of it and pushed on, walking faster. 

Juno tried desperately to occupy his mind, making lists for groceries he couldn’t afford and jobs he wouldn’t get to at the office and going over cases he solved years ago, as he walked through puddles of streetlight. But it was a flimsy shield and he knew it; just beyond the thin veneer of a busy brain sat the thick clouds of grey fog he’d glimpsed, the ones that could dull him and numb him until he drowned without ever fighting back. 

He’d always managed to catch himself in time, drag himself out of the other side, get back into the office, try again even if he knew it would go the same way all the others had. 

And Juno dreaded the day where he couldn’t even manage that. 

He was at his apartment building now, chanting the ingredients for stew his mother would make on her good days under his breath, each step of the method taking him up one of the far too many stairs he had to climb. Step by step, no other thoughts allowed. 

Juno was as far as serving the stew into two identical bowls and making sure your greedy brother didn’t get the one with extra pieces of carrot as he took out the key and slotted it into the door. It always needed a shove to get it going, the damp and general lack of attention had warped the wood. Thought it could also have been the many times it had been battered by things trying to get in or out. 

So many things that Juno had long ago developed the habit of entering his apartment assuming something was going to attack him, shoulders tense, legs locked, hand on his blaster. 

A habit he’d lost after becoming depressed and ever since touching the blaster he could no longer use made his chest uncomfortably tight. 

So when he realised there was someone sitting on his ratty sofa, eyes trained on him and something in their hands, Juno was entirely unprepared. And very embarrassed. 

“God damn-” was all he got out, hand scrabbling at his belt because if he couldn’t aim for shit anymore maybe he could at least throw it at them, before the shadow stood up and spoke in a voice he knew, a voice that had teased him and cursed him and, last he’d heard it, held him so safely and made him feel so much. 

A voice he’d never thought to hear again, since he left it in a dark motel room. 

“Juno Steel. I’d apologise for the theatrics but...well, it’s me.”

It was a long time before he could find any words at all, lost in picking out the things he recognised in the shadow, the slope of a nose, the wink of a golden chain in his ear, trying to figure out how it made him feel. 

“Nureyev...what...I don’t understand…”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Juno,” Nureyev stood, not as smoothly as Juno would have expected, like something was weighing him down, “I didn’t anticipate needing to talk to you again after...everything but things beyond my control have forced my hand. We need to talk.”

Juno still felt much like a rabbit staring down the lights of an eighteen wheel truck, flicking on the lights and coming to stand in the doorway, keeping a fair distance between him and Nureyev. 

The man who had offered to show him the stars and he had refused. 

He was holding something, something wrapped in blankets that he was clutching to his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world. That struck him as odd immediately, an odd thing in a flood of odd things, but his eye caught on it anyway. 

He had seen Nureyev work a few times, he’d seen him steal keys and ancient martian masks and legendary, semi sentient getaway cars, things he wanted and things he needed. But he would never let it show when he held them, or had them under his hands. He never had this look of protectiveness, that grip in his fingers like he was going to pull a knife on anyone who tried to take it from him. Because if he showed he wanted it, then that was a vulnerability. That was a connection. 

Nureyev’s voice was a practised kind of steady, like he too was surprised to find them here but wanted Juno to flinch first, “You can relax, Juno, I’m not here to kill you like some jealous spurned lover from a bad stream.”

“I never...I never thought that,” Juno said honestly, it had never crossed his mind that Nureyev was going to hurt him. Though it would be hard to argue he didn’t deserve at least a slap. 

“I’m here to make a request of you, actually,” Nureyev stepped forward, so he’d tower over Juno a little more. 

Though a little less than he should have. He wasn’t wearing heels. He had worn heels to rob a train that moved at a thousand miles an hour but he wasn’t wearing them now, just flat, plain shoes to stand on Juno’s peeling, cracking floor. No corset either, just black trousers and a loose black shirt that looked silky in the low streetlight coming in from outside. He was dressed so...so un-Nureyev. 

“You need something from me?” Juno squared his shoulders, aware that he was staring, “What?” 

Nureyev’s teeth still flashed when he spoke, in that way that had first snagged Juno nearly three years ago now, “I need you to hold something for me. Something very, very,  _ very  _ precious to me.”

Juno frowned, “You don’t have any other place to stash stolen goods? Don’t you have a whole network for that thing, buyers lined up before you pull a job?”

_ Why are you antagonising him, Steel? _

Nureyev squared his thin shoulders, thinner than Juno had last seen them, “Not what I’m asking, Juno. This will go easier if you don’t jump to conclusions before I’ve even opened my mouth.” 

Juno folded his arms defensively across his chest, “Look, Nureyev, whatever it is, I really don’t think I’m the one for the job. We clearly don’t...work together as well as we thought we did.”

That curled his lip, “Oh, I agree, Detective. However I don’t have a choice. You are the only person I can trust with this.” 

Juno’s frown deepened, about to open his mouth and snap something back that would only turn the conversation sourer when the package of blanket in Nureyev’s arms shifted and made a noise. He started, about to demand to know if Nureyev had actually brought a cat into his apartment, when the thief turned away and spoke softly to it, moving back the soft material, voice low and soothing. 

Not a cat. A child. 

“Nureyev, what the hell have you done?” Juno croaked, jaw dropping. 

It was clear his assumptions were wrong in a heartbeat when Nureyev rounded on him with more fury in his eyes than Juno had ever seen. More fury than he’d ever thought could be held in eyes usually so still and placid and clever. The child, blinking large dark eyes sleepily, seemed to pick up on it, face creasing unhappily and turning their face against his chest with an unhappy noise. 

“Whatever you are thinking, Detective, I suggest you stop,” he snapped, baring his teeth, “And think about what kind of man you know me to be. Whatever possessed you to leave me in that motel room, you must know I am not the kind of thief you are imagining.” 

“Nureyev, easy, I...I get it,” Juno held up his hands, feeling scared of the man in front of him for the first time, “I just don’t understand…”

“Then think,” he took a step forward, “Use that brain you claim to have that I have seen so little evidence of. You can do basic mathematics, yes?”

Juno blinked, static rising loud and so distracting in his head, even as his PI’s eye looked at what little of the child he could see. Dark hair. Skin the colour of turned earth on the home most humans had never known. He couldn’t place her age exactly, all babies looked the same to him, but she was clearly brand new, barely more than a handful of months. And it had been a year since he’d last seen Peter Nureyev. 

The static was deafening now and he was swaying slightly on his feet. 

“Oh, god damn it…” he rasped.

“Are you there yet?” Nureyev’s voice was flat and unimpressed, “Or do you need me to draw you a diagram?”

“Nureyev, I…” Juno’s hands came up to grip his hair, a tic he’d thought he’d shaken off, “I’m so, so sorry…”

“A little late for that,” Nureyev narrows his eyes, “And unnecessary. My choice was my own. I’m not here to ask you for anything permanent, I don’t want money, I don’t want you to make an honest man of me or anything so trite. And I certainly don’t want your pity.” 

Juno tried to take that in, still mostly preoccupied with the static in his head, “Then...then what…”

Nureyev’s jaw set, expression awkward for the first time, “My...my getaway from the last job I pulled wasn’t as clean as I normally manage. I allow myself some leniency for being rather...preoccupied but still. There are consequences I don’t usually have to deal with. Consequences I cannot put my daughter in the path of. I need somewhere safe for her to be while I deal with this and cut the loose ends. Somewhere safe with someone who fully understands how vital it is that  _ no one learns of her existence.  _ Do I make myself clear, Juno?”

Juno knew an answer was expected of him but all he could focus on was the words that had seized his heart, “A daughter?”

Nureyev looked down at the baby in his arms, something softening ever so slightly in his face, almost too small to catch, “Yes. Her name is Bianca Nureyev.”

Juno swallowed hard, still feeling ice water run through his body instead of blood, “It’s...it’s a real pretty name.”

Nureyev had an expression on his face like he was trying very hard not to care about Juno’s opinion of her name, “It is beautiful. And above all, it is precious. I trust you remember how much I value my own name? Well know that I would rather climb this very building and scream my name at the top of my lungs for all of Hyperion to hear than have my daughter be common knowledge.”

_ The name you trusted me with. The name you valued less than me. _

Juno didn’t know what was worse, when he’d thought he’d never have Nureyev’s trust after he’d left or this, suddenly finding himself being handed it again. 

“Nureyev…” Juno’s eye slid guiltily around his apartment, all the decay and mess that was so clearly visible, thrown into sharp, uncomfortable relief in the glare of the naked bulb overhead. Nureyev had been here a while, certainly long enough to see the take out containers, mostly untouched and left to rot, the case files piling up on the little used bed, the newspapers gathering dust, the empty fridge and reek of a place that hadn’t seen fresh air in too long. 

His expression confirmed it for Juno, “Believe me, if there was any alternative, anyone else I could leave her with...god, if there was any way to avoid this entirely, I would take it. But she’s in danger every second she’s with me and I can’t have that. If I’m going to do this right, I need a clean break. And, ironically, the process of acquiring one is often messy.” 

“I mean...I’ll try but…”

“Oh no,” his voice was a knife’s slice into darkness that hit home, “You will not try, detective. You will do this. You said you’re sorry? Then prove it. Help me make something of the ridiculous mess we got ourselves in by pulling yourself together for a month or so and making sure my daughter is safe and well until I can come back for her. It is, quite literally, the least you can do.”

Juno eyed the baby girl in Nureyev’s arms, now looking back at him with a curious awareness, like she was some kind of explosive. Long before he’d made a complete, smouldering mess of his life, the sight of young children with their parents had made him feel sickly. On the street, at the park, on the rare occasions a client would turn up with one on their hip, they gave him prickly sweats and an itchy feeling down his spine, a directionless kind of panic. 

He wanted to shout at every parent he passed, everyone with a tiny hand in their own, to get in their face and yell at them  _ do not fuck this up, do you have any idea of the damage you can do? _

And the thing was he knew exactly how much damage he was capable of. After all, look what he’d managed to do without even thinking. A baby girl, looking at him with his own eyes, his own vaguely exhausted expression. Fragile as new blown glass, incomprehensible as distant stars. 

But he’d wanted to be a hero, a year ago. He’d amended that recently to a smaller goal, simply wanting something other than the heavy, grey fog. 

Maybe this way he could have both. 

Juno held out his arms. 

Whether it was relief or agony on Nureyev’s face, he couldn’t say, it was gone too quick to pin down. He simply slung a large bag from his shoulder, setting it on the floor. 

“She has a week’s supply of everything in there. Clothes, diapers, her formula. You’ll need to buy more when it runs out, this was what I could gather at short notice. Also her books, clothes and toys...the cloth cat is a particular favourite, if she’s crying, she probably wants that...” 

Juno nodded, “Right, yeah. No problem.” He noticed his arms were still empty. 

Nureyev was hesitating, something he’d never seen him do. He was poised to pass his daughter over but had frozen halfway through, like his muscles wouldn’t move any further. There was a long pause before he sighed, pressed the gentlest of kisses to his daughter’s head and quickly eased her into Juno’s arms. Immediately, he boughed under the weight of her. 

“I’ll be back, my treasure…” he was addressing her, lines of pain cracking through his mask, eyes swimming for a fraction of a second before they turned to him and turned to flint, “Keep her safe. Promise me, Juno Steel.”

“I promise,” he tried to make his voice sound sure. He failed. 

Nureyev looked like he would snatch her back for a second before straightening, “Well, that will have to do.” 

Like it was breaking his heart to stay any longer, he turned on his heel and went for the door without a glance back. It shut behind him with a click and Juno heard him taking the stairs, upwards rather than down, to do god knew what. 

And he was left holding a baby he hadn’t known existed until a minute ago, with a brain full of static.

Like an actor who’d forgotten his lines, he rocked on his heels and shuffled awkwardly for a few moments before turning to look at Bianca, sitting uncertainty in his arms. 

“So, um...hello?” he tried, “I’m Juno.” 

Bianca looked up at him with her creased little face and big, wide eyes and decided that he was definitely not Nureyev.

So she opened her little rosebud pink mouth and began to scream for all she was worth. 

Juno slumped down onto his sofa. 

“Yeah. Me too, kiddo.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno tries to survive these months with Bianca and quickly realises he needs help.

It had been four hours, not even half a day, and Juno was already losing his mind.

He had called in sick at the crack of dawn, unsure of what else to do or what he was going to say when that excuse ran thin, putting the phone down sharply on Rita’s protestations that Mistah Steel  _ never  _ voluntarily called in sick. As often happened when he talked with- or rather shouted at- Rita, he immediately regretted being so sharp and so curt, the second it was too late to take the words back. It just always seemed like he couldn’t control himself in the moment, like someone else, much angrier and snappier, took the reins when he opened his mouth. 

Which didn’t bode well for his new job. 

He walked away from his comms and stared balefully at the tiny, wrinkled peanut of a baby lying in the middle of his hastily cleared and aired out bed. How such a loud and relentless noise could come from something so small, he didn’t have the faintest idea but she’d been going at it since the ten seconds after Nureyev had walked out of the door. 

Not that Juno could blame her. He would scream his head off too, if he’d been abandoned in some stinking, cramped little apartment with a stranger with a scowl like his own. He understood why but good god, it was getting painful. 

Every time he made an attempt to soothe her, picking her up or talking to her, she’d just rev like a little engine and the screaming would kick up in pitch until Juno was wincing and fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears. He’d tried everything he could think of, even zipped open the bag Nureyev had left and pulled out the cloth cat he’d talked about. He had to admit it was cute, the compound eyes done in little sequins and everything. 

And when he’d held it out in front of Bianca, she had kicked it out of his hand furiously and sent it across the room. 

Juno sighed, feeling a headache root itself in the very base of his brain, “Are you hungry? Is that it?” 

She gave no answer but to ball up her little fists against her face, now red as the planet she was trapped on. Juno was getting apprehensive, that colour couldn’t be good to maintain for an extended period of time. Would she just burst if she kept on like that? What would he tell Nureyev then, when he came back?

If he came back. 

That thought had gnawed at his brain stem since he’d seen this new, exhausted version of Nureyev with his hair growing a little too long and the shadows under his eyes. He tried to marry it up with the Nureyev he’d known, the man with the sleek, predator’s smile and poise and the heart underneath it all and he couldn’t make a man who would do something like this. Like any of this, having a kid, protecting them, upending the life he curated so carefully for something out of his control. 

And if that was true, what did it mean? Had Juno set himself up as neatly as he’d done for Rex Glass? What if Nureyev had no intention of ever coming back? 

He didn’t know this new Nureyev, with the broken heart and the tired eyes. He couldn’t say what he wanted, what his plan was. If he acted only in his own self interest, what was he trying to achieve by leaving him with this squalling little noise maker that had been cursed with half Steel DNA?

A hundred different anxieties sat in the pit of his stomach and clawed at it’s walls, making him feel sick and intensifying his headache. He couldn’t puzzle it out, like a mass of string that grew more complicated as a tugged at it. 

Groaning, he tugged at his curls and said, “Fine. Food. Let’s try that.”

Making a bottle was far more complicated than he ever could have imagined, especially with Bianca balanced in one arm and screaming. He had to wrestle with the tub of formula to get it open then was greeted with a nauseating burst of artificial milk smell when it finally popped open, as well as a large amount in his hair and his good eye. It had to be measured out just right, he had to wash his hands, he had to boil the kettle then leave it for a full half hour, all while tiny little fists flew and a tiny little tantrum raged. Finally he had gotten it stirred all together, ran it under the water to cool it, even splattered some on his wrist to see if it was too hot like people did on streams. 

He was proud of himself for five seconds until he sat back down on his bed, trying to angle Bianca so he could feed her. She made an indignant chirp sound as he tipped her, suddenly finding herself staring up at him. She seemed to ignore the bottle in her face, spluttering like a struggling engine, just looking at Juno. There was a moment of pause there, like they were both holding their breath as near identical pairs of eyes seemed to see each other for the first time. 

And then her foot connected with the bottle and the top joints of his fingers where it hurt the most, sending it out of his grip and into his lap, where the top burst off and soaked him in lukewarm formula. 

“Okay!” Juno burst out, startling them both. He jumped up, setting her down firmly on the covers, frustration making his cheeks burn, “Look, I know you’re in a strange place with a strange lady and you don’t get what’s going on but there is no need to make it this difficult! This sucks for me just as much as it does for you and it’s only going to get worse if you insist on being such a little mons-”

Juno stopped himself, sucking the word back in like a vacuum had opened up in his throat. But another voice finished it for him, a voice he’d expected to have grown hazier in his mind with the years between the last time he’d heard it and now. But no, it stayed sharp and clear as ever, like it lived on in a dark corner of himself. 

And god, it terrified him.

He took a deep breath, tugging his hair, trying to keep himself grounded. It was a fight he was quickly losing until he realised that the room had become quiet. Quiett in a way it hadn’t been in for four hours. 

Bianca wasn’t crying. She was looking at him, her little chest heaving like she might start again any second. Her round cheeks were wet and her fists pulled tight to her chest, fingers working nervously. 

She needed him. She didn’t like it, he didn’t like it but it didn’t make it any less true. And Juno found himself looking at the exact same choice Sarah Steel had faced, one he had never wanted to have land in his lap. 

He could fall apart and let down this tiny little person who was depending on him. Or he could not. 

Juno had seen the consequences that one of those paths lead to, he lived with it’s scars every day of his life. And he couldn’t bear to take that road himself. It would be hard. He might still fail with every new step. He may well be doomed to tip and fall to the other side, it might be written into every cell of his body.

But even if it was, he could still fight it with a clenched jaw and split knuckles. And damn it, he was going to. 

Sighing, Juno crossed over to his wardrobe and kicked away his now soaked sweatpants, exchanging them for his only other pair, the ones that were from his slightly slimmer HCPD days but would suffice. Then he came back over and picked up Bianca, carrying her back to the kitchen. 

The steps were easier to follow this time, now he’d done them once. Wash the hands, pick up a fresh, sterilised bottle, two scoops of powder, fill with cooled boiled water up to the line. Test it on his wrist. 

While he waited, he looked down at Bianca and regarded her, really looked at her. He couldn’t think of her as his daughter, not yet, that would be asking too much too soon. But he could see the resemblance even with one eye. She had his skin colour, his eyes, even the grumpy set to his face. 

Suddenly, he was certain Nureyev would come back. She clearly missed him so much, what would there be to miss if he hadn’t given her love from the moment she was born? He’d meant every word he’d said about how precious she was to him, even if Juno couldn’t make sense of it with the man he’d known Nureyev to be. Why he’d made the choice he’d made, how he had come to shift his whole motivation, his entire driving force to include her, Juno didn’t know and maybe he’d lost the right to know. But it was what it was and he’d made a promise.

“Listen,” he eventually said, voice raspy with the lack of sleep, “I know it’s Nureyev you want. I know you miss him. But he can’t be here right now so you’ve got me instead. And...well, I’m no one’s first choice, never am. But I’m gonna try, kiddo. Alright?” 

Bianca just blinked, opening her mouth for the nib of the bottle when Juno tipped it towards her, latching on quickly and feeding greedily. 

“Alright,” Juno nodded, with a grim satisfaction. 

One step taken. 

“HCPD, Captain Khan speaking, how can I help, citizen?”

“Oh good, Khan, it’s you. I really didn’t think McCluskey was going to put me through after he chewed me out for ten whole minutes…”

“Wha... _ Steel? _ What the hell have you gotten yourself into now? What the hell could be worth giving me another goddamn aneurysm?”

“Little rude, Khan, I could be calling to report a crime for all you know.”

“Oh, you usually are, Steel. You just don’t realise you are and that you’re turning yourself in.”

“You’ve never been able to make any of those charges stick and you know it...but I’m really not calling about that, I’m calling to do some...research. For a case.”

“What do I look like, a library?” 

“For crying out loud, I thought you guys were supposed to help citizens. Look, it won’t take five seconds, I just need to know if there’s anything you can do to get a baby to sleep through the night.”

“If...Steel, what in the hell is this case you’re working?”

“Not important! I just need an answer and well...you got kids, right? I thought you might know?”

“...Steel, you are by far the strangest individual I have ever had the misfortune to-”

“Khan, do you have an answer or not? This case is...time sensitive.”

“Well...I mean, lots of different people have different ideas on the subject. But I’d say the main concern is two fold, establishing a firm routine and then teaching the kid to self soothe. Kids love a schedule, y’know, helps them get into the rhythm of things. Same time every day, dinner then bath then tuck in. And put them in the crib when they’re drowsy but not fully asleep, that way they learn they call fall asleep on their own. The wife had to be very firm with me on that one, I can tell you, just too tempting to let them fall asleep in your arms-”

“Okay, that all sounds great. Thanks, uh, Captain. This will be very useful for my...my case.”

“I still don’t see what kind of case this could possibly be useful for, Steel…”

“Oh and wouldn’t you know it, that’s my client awake...um, I mean, calling. Got to go, Captain, thanks again!”

“Is that...crying?”

Juno had to remind himself he wasn’t getting any less sleep than he had before. But there was something about the fractured, broken glass snatches of sleep he was getting versus the low, barely awake fog he’d existed in before that was just leaving him feeling more drained than he ever had. Maybe it was the waking up to screams he couldn’t decipher, a loud and angry puzzle he couldn’t solve, rather than to a silent apartment and silent ghosts. 

But there had been some small wins in the last three days. If he wanted to be optimistic, something Juno only was in his most desperate moments, he would say those wins were getting closer together. 

He’d managed to wash Bianca’s dirty onesies in the sink with newly purchased detergent so she’d have clean ones to wear, rather than just burning through the pile of new ones she’d been left with. He’d bought a steriliser for her bottles and had actually set it up without anything exploding. He’d gotten her to accept the cloth cat, rather than brutalising it when he suspected she probably wanted to aim those tiny fists with their incredibly sharp nails at him. 

And just now he’d managed to change her diaper without getting them both in a worse mess at the end than when they’d begun. He was actually starting to anticipate when she would try to roll off the table, able to snag her before she could.

Juno set her down on her blanket in the middle of the room, “Right...stay there and try not to be gross for five seconds. I just got the stains out of that little suit you’re wearing.”

Bianca answered as she usually did, with an indignant burble and a scowl she seemed to be perfecting. She was clearly still confused and bitter that he wasn’t Nureyev and Juno couldn’t exactly blame her. It was probably for the best that she saw him as a temporary annoyance. 

“I’m gonna go get Kitty, you stay there and don’t roll anywhere or pull anything down or barf on anything,” he instructed as firmly as he could, pointing at her for emphasis like that was going to make any difference. 

Bianca replied exactly as he’d expected, which was to stare at him like he was an idiot. It was eerily similar to Nureyev’s. 

Kitty was where they’d been left, in the moses basket Bianca slept in beside the bed. Juno tried to imagine it in the corner of whatever hotel room Nureyev was staying in on whatever complicated and history book worthy scheme he was pulling, under whatever elaborate, flowery name he’d constructed. At least he’d found someone to see the stars with.

He snatched up the toy, holding it awkwardly by the poison stinger, admonishing himself for thinking about stupid stuff when Bianca could be losing his security deposit and pissing off his landlord in any number of inventive ways. 

Which was when he heard the door open. And his heart leapt into his throat. 

He flung himself out of the bedroom, hand groping for a blaster he hadn’t been wearing for three days and couldn’t even use, other hand forming a fist, ready to just throw himself at whatever threat had just walked through the door if he couldn’t shoot it dead. 

Fortunately, a second before he could do that, he heard her voice. 

“Well, hello there! Who might you be, little bean?”

Juno’s shoulder slammed painfully into the doorframe as he skidded to a halt, all his momentum and panic turning into a rush of air that sounded vaguely like, “Rita?”

“Mistah Steel!” Sure enough, his secretary was standing in his living room, peering curiously at Bianca, though she’d turned to give him her kilowatt grin as he’d entered, “Where’d you get this cutie from?”

“Rita,” Juno managed a clearer though no less stunned attempt at her name, “What are you doing here at this hour, it’s…” he realised then he didn’t actually know what time it was. 

“I’m here cos you aint been in the office for three days!” Rita exploded, a worry she’d clearly been distracted from by Bianca flooding back into her expression, “You called in sick the first time but then you didn’t answer any of my calls and I thought maybe you’d dropped your comms in the toilet again cos it was never right after that first time when the screen went all wibbly…”

“Rita,” Juno groaned, slumping against the doorway. A lot of conversations with his secretary turned into just repeating her name to punctuate her long, rambly monologues until she clicked on that he was trying to talk to her. It was like paying a toll to cross a bridge. 

“But, Boss, my goodness but you haven’t answered my question! Why on Mars is there a  _ baby  _ on your living room floor?”

Juno scrambled for a lie, he hadn’t decided yet what he’d tell anyone if they asked about Bianca. He hadn’t been anticipating having to tell anyone, really. He had no friends after all and he didn’t have the kind of face that invited casual conversation in the street. 

And he’d never been any good at lying to Rita. Which is why he avoided telling her anything she wouldn’t want to know. 

“I’m...I’m watching her for a friend, while they’re out of town,” he eventually coughed up, “Just for a little while.”

Rita turned back to her, studying her face. Her face, so similar to the one looking at her nervously, minus thirty eight years and an eye. 

Eventually she grinned, “Well, I can see why ya offered to watch her. She’s a real cute little madam.”

Juno gave a rough, strained smile. That was why he never lied to Rita. She always believed him without question. 

“But, Mistah Steel, I gotta say, this apartment is  _ not  _ set up for babysitting duty! You could’ve called me, cleaning this place is a two person job for sure. Probably six or seven. But we’ll work with what we got.”

“Oh, Rita, no,” Juno groaned, “You don’t have to do that…”

“Well, with all due respect, were you gonna look after her all by your lonesome? When you...well, forgive me for saying so, Boss, but when you forget to look after yourself sometimes?” 

Juno flinched, “I’ve been doing fine!” 

“I mean...sure, Boss,” Rita ducked her eyes and he saw just how much her owlish glasses magnified them when they slipped down her nose, “But...I mean, as long as I’m here, I could maybe stick around? Sure has been lonely at the office without you. I promise I won’t clean nothin’ if that upsets you...”

Juno closed his eye and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose where he could already feel a tightness brewing, “I wasn’t trying to...yeah, fine. Hang around if you want to but no later than...I still don’t know what time it is…”

“It’s six in the afternoon, Mistah Steel.”

“Right. Well, no later than eight, Bianca has to have a bath before bed. I’m trying to get her into a routine.”

“Bianca?” Rita’s face lit up, her hair frizzing out the way it always did when she was excited, like the emotion was an actual electric current running through her body right to her dyed purple tips, “That’s such a sweet name!”

Juno winced internally. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, given her a fake name or something. But it was Rita, after all. Nureyev didn’t have a Rita.

So Juno just crashed onto the sofa and watched as she made cooing noises to Bianca, earning smiles and interested looks that he hadn’t managed to earn with three days of feeding her and changing her diapers. It was enough to make his lip turn down on one side. She’d never made those happy bubbling noises for him or stretched her hands out to be picked up by him. 

As he said. It was probably for the best. 

After a while, he felt his eyelid growing heavy and things started to turn fuzzy around the edges, a yawn pulling at the edges of his mouth that he refused to let go. He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against the broken springs that had somehow become misshapen enough to hold him with some comfort. 

“Rita…” he mumbled, voice turning vague. 

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mistah Steel, me and Bee Bee will have a good time, you get some shut eye.”

Juno tried to say something, maybe to protest that it wasn’t her name or maybe to tell her that the stuffed cat on the floor was her favourite, but whether he managed before he fell asleep, he couldn’t have said. 

Juno had been thinking a lot about what Rita had said, when she’d asked him if he’d really thought he’d be able to do this on his own, in a voice like he’d been a complete idiot. Because with a week gone since he’d been involuntarily paired up with Rita, he was realising that she was right. 

She came over every day now, to walk Bianca’s silly little cloth cat across the back of the sofa and put on elaborate pantomimes with the other parts being filled by her toys with lower billing and, when the cast grew thin, Juno’s shoes. Juno himself would scowl at any parts offered to him and sleep on the side of the stage. Or else, pretend to sleep while keeping his eye half open so he could follow the story. He found making bottles and doing laundry were far easier when he could use both his hands and he wasn’t sleep deprived and, yes, it was nicer to have time and brain space to actually make proper food for himself rather than eating take out all the time. And, well, if he accidentally made too much and Rita was there and they ended up eating at the same time at the same table while Bianca napped in her moses basket then, well...that was nice too. 

But sometimes he would find a bitter taste on his tongue and find a thought in his mind to accompany it. 

Nureyev had none of this. 

He’d done everything on his own and presumably, in another few weeks, he would come back and take her away and continue to do it all on his own. 

Tonight though, Rita was visiting Franny who’d apparently had a fall or maybe it was her birthday, Juno could never follow any story about that woman. And Bianca was clearly realising that she wasn’t getting any entertainment or cuddles that night, given how she was fussing and kicking her little legs and getting that grumpy look that Juno used to think was his own but he’d definitely seen that expression on Nureyev’s face many times. Definitely after Juno bounced the balled up doodle of a cat off his nose. 

Juno sighed and regarded her, chewing on her fist and cycling her little legs in the air, lying on her back in the middle of the bed. Every attempt to lie her down in her own had resulted in a shriek. Even after a bottle, a bath as full of bubbles as Juno could make it and one of the stories Nureyev had packed for her, she was wide eyed and full of subdued fury as ever. 

“Well,” Juno frowned at her, mimicking her expression just to amuse himself, “We can’t sit around and gripe all night, can we?”

Bianca seemed to agree for once, grabbing her ankles and attempting to put those in her mouth as well. 

“Yeah,” Juno rolled his eye, folding his arms, “How about a walk then? If you really won’t let go of any of that energy.” 

He’d realised a long time ago that walking without purpose through the streets helped him to settle his mind when he felt it getting out of control. It had been Ben’s suggestion, back when they were teenagers, that if he tired out his legs then his brain might follow suit. Well, his brother’s actual suggestion had been to dance his feelings away but he’d made it clear what he’d thought of that. Walking had been a compromise. 

Some of his best case cracking ideas had come about when he was marching along some no name street of Hyperion city, alarming the passers by when he would suddenly flap his hands and jump and punch the air in his eureka moment. 

And it had occurred to him that Bianca might feel the same, not that she had any cases to solve apart from why things stopped existing when they weren’t in her field of vision. 

She seemed to like the motion if nothing else, as Juno buttoned his coat around her just in case she got cold and set off into the evening just starting to tip into twilight. He didn’t set off with any particular destination, he never did, that was a one way ticket to undoing everything he was trying to accomplish with the walk. Once you decided you were trying to get somewhere, then things got tricky. One foot in front of the other was so much simpler. 

It was a nice night, all things considered. The dome overhead was catching the sunset in a pretty way, the electric veins of it highlighted in the gold of it so it all looked like a fancy jewelled hair net an Earth socialite would wear. The tops of the palms were dusted in it too, making the leaves shine all glossy, and even the tops of the buildings looked sharp and striking, like cut outs of black paper against the watercolour sky. Things could be beautiful in Hyperion, if you cracked your neck far enough back. 

There weren’t too many cars out, there weren’t too many people airing grievances on the sidewalk. There weren’t too many reasons to not want to be here. A pretty good night. 

Until he realised where his feet were taking him. 

Bianca shifted against his chest at the sound of the birds. This was the only place in Hyperion city where you could hear birds in the trees and see the boughs of the palms bend with nests and find feathers on the ground to pick up and realise they were always softer and had more colours in them than you’d remembered. 

The gates were just up ahead, black iron stark against the sunset so the words Halcyon Park stood out bold and bringing memories he’d rather forget, memories of other nights like this. Warm, golden nights that had seemed endless and beautiful and had ended up meaning less than dirt. 

That was one thing Juno hated more than anything else. It wasn’t just the bad memories, it was the way they poisoned even the good ones, their roots cracking through the few sweet moments of his childhood and reminding him of the horrors that had been just around the corner that he’d never seen coming. In the end, the good memories hurt all the more.

Everything in Juno told him to turn around. But Bianca was poking her head out of his coat, looking around with wide, curious eyes, at the sounds of the birds maybe or the scent of the flowers that grew in thick, crowded rows along the stone paved paths. Maybe she’d never seen anything like this before? It seemed cruel to give her a glimpse of it now and then take her away. 

And besides, she’d pitch a fit if he turned back for home now. 

So, resigned, he walked into Halcyon Park, turning Bianca around so she could blink and burble at everything they passed, seeming more content than she had all day. Everything in the park centred around the fountain so that was where they ended up, hearing the soft whisper of the water before they saw it. Juno sat heavily down on one of the light wood benches, styled after the old parks of Earth, the ones that now only existed in picture books like Bianca’s, with their well dressed people in long dresses and tall hats and fresh air. 

It didn’t take him long to realise he was sitting exactly where Sarah would sit, while he and Benzaiten would run rings around each other, more often than not tumbling into the fountain itself and getting soaked. And sometimes he would look up, through his dripping curls and see her staring off into space, like the two of them weren’t even there. And sometimes he would see her watching them with such intensity and an emotion he’d been too young to name and couldn’t remember now. And he would never be sure which he preferred. 

Bianca had been watching the falling water devotedly, awed by how it split the fading sunlight and sparkled as if a handful of stars were tumbling from the darkening sky into the fountain like pennies for good luck. But now she yawned, resting her head on Juno’s chest, putting all of her weight against him.

Juno looked down. He hadn’t held her like this since she’d arrived, just cradling her because he could. Whenever he’d picked her up before it was always to move her from place to place or to balance her awkwardly while he put a bottle together as hastily as he could to stop her shrieking. He couldn’t remember just holding her for its own sake, feeling her warmth and weight and her little heart beat going like a hummingbird against his own. 

And he knew why he hadn’t. 

But now he was, Bianca had settled into it so easily, almost as if she’d been waiting for it, crying for it since she’d arrived and not understanding why he hadn’t listened. She was resting against him and patting her little starfish hand against his chest softly, nodding off to the sound of the birds and the smell of the flowers and whisper of the water and the rhythm of his heartbeat. Eventually she reached one of those hands up and patted around his ear, maybe looking for a golden cuff earring. Instead her fingers found the curls of his hair, where they were tighter and closer around the arch of his ear. Almost immediately she fastened on, stroking and petting and grasping where it had been getting longer than he was used to. And she fell asleep, content. So easily, she pillowed her head in the comfort that Juno was there. She trusted him. 

Juno realised he was crying just in time to wipe away the tears that were sliding down one side of his face, catching them before they dripped onto Bianca’s head. And he felt like he could name the emotion he’d seen in Sarah’s eyes on those broken, golden nights of his childhood. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno finds his life changed yet again when Nureyev returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I'm sorry. I'm just sorry

Juno was exhausted, down to the marrow of his bones, but sleep didn’t find him. He didn’t want it to, either. 

The apartment was in almost total darkness but for the squares of streetlight that came in through the bared windows, sharp and distorted cut outs of yellow that only put the shadows in sharper relief. One fell right across the top half of Juno’s face, on his remaining eye. He could have got up and drawn the curtains at any time but he didn’t. 

He didn’t want to sleep, he wanted to see.

He’d put Bianca’s moses basket on his bed, taking up the half that was really meant for another person but would always just be where he sprawled himself as he tossed and turned through any number of nightmares. He held himself very still, ready to set her down if he started to nod, frightened of pushing her off the bed in his sleep. But sleep didn’t find him. 

Juno was too lost in looking at her, focused the way he would focus on his work, a problem to solve that would consume him until it became unhealthy. He couldn’t have looked away even if he’d had a mind to. He just laid awake and watched the rise and fall of her tiny chest inside her sleep suit, watched the play of muscles in her face as she dreamed and shifted in her sleep. His arm was still draped over the edge of the basket from where he’d gotten her to drift off by slowly opening and closing his fingers just above her head and letting her grab for them. Sometimes, when she moved just right, the tips of his long, scarred fingers would brush her tufts of wispy black hair or the powder soft skin of her face. And whenever that would happen, he would feel a tug in his chest he didn’t want to feel.

It was so easy to think that Nureyev had simply woven Bianca from starlight, that he’d stolen her into existence and Juno had never even been part of it. When he told himself that it was easier to breathe. He didn’t feel that numbness in the very edges of himself that signified panic setting in and taking root, that had always made him want to run and put his fists up, ever since he was a kid. It didn’t send a thousand questions running through his mind that he knew he’d never be able to pin down and solve. 

It made it easier to know that this was all temporary. 

If you didn’t have something, you couldn’t lose it. And Juno had lost so much already. 

But whenever he felt her hair under his fingertips and that tug of a connection being pulled, he would become aware of the small part of his mind that was already doing just what he knew he couldn’t do, trying on labels to see how they fit, seeing Bianca in a way that would only cause hurt to everyone. 

Which is why he didn’t want to sleep. If he wasn’t keeping a short, careful leash on his mind, who knew what could grow and spread and what it could ruin. 

And he was also enjoying watching Bianca sleep. 

So Juno stayed still and stayed quiet, keeping his eyes on the sleeping baby, listening to her feather light breathing. And sleep didn’t find him.

“You are in a mood today.”

Bianca answered with a miffed sounding string of nonsense sounds, waving her hands in the air. 

“Yeah,” Juno nodded, “You are definitely in a mood.”

He’d ran through all the usual fixes, feeling like Rita hacking the office computer into something it was definitely never meant to be while he’d sit at his desk with his comms and forget how to work the volume again. He’d fed her, he’d changed her, she was fresh from a nap. He’d held her, cuddled her and walked around the living room so many times that he’d probably worn a groove into the floor. It seemed like she was just determined to be fussy this afternoon, squawking for some kind of entertainment but pushing away everything he offered.

He was starting to feel a lot of sympathy for anyone who’d ever had to deal with him when he was in one of his difficult moods. 

“Well, there’s a dust storm warning so we can’t go to the park,” Juno drummed his fingers on his cheek as he thought, “And that’s a pretty damn powerful scowl, little lady, but I doubt it can stop a hundred kilometer per hour wind. Fifty, maybe. But not a hundred.” 

Bianca made it clear what she thought of that, making a kitten-like yowling sound that Juno amused himself by mimicking back to her. She looked at him in complete and total shock for a second before scowling even harder. Juno pulled the exact same face, scrunching up his broad nose and furrowing his brow exaggeratedly. Bianca didn’t find it as funny as he did. 

“Let’s see if we can find a stream for you or something,” Juno eventually sighed after she’d burst into annoyed wails, “I don’t know where the kids channel is but...maybe if I just push some buttons, I don’t know…”

He plonked her down on the sofa, propping her up so she didn’t fall over or roll away in her indignation. He picked up what Rita called his ‘dummy’s remote’ where she’d put clear labels on every single button telling him what it did, after she’d gotten exhausted of his constant questions. He flicked through channels, looking for something that looked vaguely soft and kid friendly, quickly scrambling past several screens full of bursting blood or bare skin, wondering if he should be covering her eyes. He’d never had cause to worry about the moral state of the stream network before but he was starting to see what people were complaining about. 

And in the flickering flashes of colour and nonsense, clipped noise Juno suddenly saw familiarity that connected with the blunt force of a punch to the gut. 

A tall, powerful woman hefting a sword as tall as she was with ease, speaking with a voice that propelled him backwards to a different time entirely. Suddenly he was sitting cross legged on the fraying, stained carpets that came standard with every house in Oldtown, eyes wide and heart full to bursting, not even hearing the shouting from the other room or feeling his brother tugging on his sleeve or knowing everything around him was falling apart, as long as the screen was still on and he could still hear that voice. 

For a few blissful hours, feeling brave. Feeling strong and sure and certain and like he mattered. 

Juno went to press the button again, everything too sharp and too real all of a sudden, wanting that woman and that music out of his current moment as quickly as he could. But as soon as he did, the screen changing to show some documentary about the history of dome development, Bianca shrieked in dismay. 

Juno turned to look at her, seeing her waving her hands and babbling with clear upset, pedalling her little feet. 

“Really?” he groaned, “There’s nothing else you’d want to watch?”

Bianca blew a long, loud raspberry. Even someone who’d only had a baby around for two weeks could see what she was trying to say. 

Juno sighed heavily and flicked it back, filling the screen with Andromeda the Chainmail Warrior. Andromeda and the Sea of Sinners, if he was any judge. He knew that soundtrack anywhere, he’d hummed it so many times while scaling the sofa with a collider on his toddler curls, swinging a stick from the park with abandon. 

Bianca made a cheery little hooting noise, shoving her fist in her mouth and gumming at it contentedly, happier than she’d been all day. Juno pulled a face, trying to focus on how relievingly content she was, rather than the uncomfortable tightness in his chest at half of his brain still being in his past. He tried to only hear her happy murmurs, her gasps when the screen would fill with colour, and not the long dead voices crowding in his head. 

Eventually Juno reached over and cupped the back of her head. He told himself it was to support her better as he noticed her starting to curl in on herself but as soon as he wound his fingers through her airy curls, he felt his heartbeat slow down to a much more comfortable level and the air came into his lungs so much easier. The voices seemed further away, like they were almost back in the past where they belonged. Almost. 

Bianca had no complaints, leaning back into his palm, dark eyes still on the screen. She was as hooked as Juno had been the first time he’d heard that voice. 

He wondered if she felt brave. If she felt like she could do anything, watching Andromeda fall again and again but still manage to get back up and win with ten minutes of runtime to spare. He wondered if the music made her burst with energy too, if everything she wore would suddenly feel like chainmail, if anything she held would become a sword. 

Juno knew he was being facetious. She wasn’t old enough to be thinking any of that stuff, she probably just liked the noise and colour, but it was so hard to see the attentiveness on her little face and not think of the toddler he’d been, equally as swept up in the bliss of it all. 

But Juno didn’t want it to be as temporary for her as it had been for him. His joy had been so short lived, life had quickly squared up to show him how powerless he really was, how it had all been a silly daydream, how no fantasy could protect him. 

He wanted Bianca to feel strong all the time. He wanted her to know she was brave and true and that nothing could harm her. He wanted it to be real for her, in the way it never had been for him. He wanted her to win. 

And he knew he would do anything to make it happen. 

Juno sighed softly and ran his thumb across the crown of her head. Was this what it was? To want the world to be so much better for them than it had ever been for you? To be willing to break your fingers reshaping it all for their sake? 

Was it supposed to hurt? Was it supposed to terrify you?

Juno felt every single day go past. At first, it had been like carving a tally into a prison wall, just trying to survive every one. 

Now he wasn’t sure. But he certainly felt it still. 

He jumped at every single shadow he saw from the corner of his eye. Every time he walked back into the apartment with an armful of groceries and Bianca on his hip, his heart stayed in his throat until he could turn the light on and see an empty sofa. Any footstep he couldn’t immediately place or scrape at the door set his teeth on edge. And as the weeks turned into a month, it only got worse. Even worse that he couldn’t decide whether he was anticipating or dreading, unsure of what emotion would flood him when the sword finally fell. 

Juno should have known all his paranoia would never prepare him, that Nureyev would find a way to still make it a shock. 

Juno woke up with a head that felt like it was full of cotton wool, shaken from deep sleep and looking for something to hold on to. He sat up, blinking and running his hand through his matted hair, lurching towards the moses basket to check on Bianca, as was habit now. 

He didn’t believe what he saw at first, thinking he was still in a nightmare. The blanket was dented, rumbled, moulded to a little body that wasn’t there. She wasn’t there.

Juno was on his feet while his brain was still gaping in horror, moving before he really knew where he was going. A raw and frantic kind of panic he hadn’t felt since the worst day of his life fired through his nerves as he surged forward, throat ready to cry her name. 

And then he stopped dead, seeing the silhouette in the living room, outlined in the streetlight glare. Sharp and angular, he would know it anywhere. 

Nureyev hadn’t noticed him yet, for all the crashing he’d done. Juno didn’t think he’d have noticed a sandstorm sweeping in through the window, he clearly only had eyes for Bianca. He held her to his chest, speaking softly, lips pressed to her head, clasping her like he was never going to let her go. There was so much love in it, in the way he held her and the gentleness of his tone, that for a second Juno couldn’t breathe.

He hadn’t known love like that could really exist. 

He waited to see what he would feel, looking for an emotion he could name. Nothing obliged him. 

“Nureyev,” he eventually murmured, scared to shatter the scene before him, like he was seeing something he wasn’t meant to.

Dark eyes turned to his, looking dangerous before he registered him and they smoothed into calm professionalism, like they were at a business meeting that just happened to take place in the middle of the night in a dark room. 

“Ah, Juno. My apologies, I never meant to involve you in this but I must have lingered too long.”

Juno blinked, still unsure if he was sleeping or not, “What? You...you were just going to take her? Leave me wondering?”

Nureyev’s expression could only be described as careful, mouth falling open to show his sharp teeth, “Why, Juno, I appreciate your dedication to the favour I asked of you. I would have left a note.”

Juno swallowed hard, taking a few steps forward, “So the...the complications you were dealing with, that’s all over?”

“As if they had never been,” Nureyev answered airily, as if Juno had asked for the time, “My reputation is restored to its usual spotlessness. And so I continue on into the stars, dear detective.”

Juno felt his throat tighten, “Already? You know...you can stick around a bit. Have a drink or whatever.”

Nureyev gave him a long look from behind his neat, cat eye glasses, “I would have thought you’d want her out of your hair.” His voice sounded more clipped now, like he was watching a play go on longer than he’d like. 

“Come on, Nureyev,” Juno’s voice heated, “I spent a month with her, you’re going to leave without so much as a thank you?”

“Forgive me, have I committed a faux pas? What wine do you bring to the good lady who promised you his heart then left you not an hour later, with child, and has now reluctantly done the bare minimum while you had to go bloodily clear a path back to anonymity?”

Juno flinched, patience evaporating like water on a hot stove, “Fine. You don’t have to be an ass about it.”

He turned to sulk back to his bed, heart hammering sickeningly, pulsing anger through his veins. But there was a soft, sad sigh behind him.

“Juno,” Nureyev said, voice quiet, “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. It’s been a long night and...and, well, I don’t think I’ve quite forgiven myself for leaving her here. But I am grateful to you.”

Juno turned back, heart straining towards that softer, kinder Nureyev he’d known who had apparently magically reappeared in his darkened living room, “You’re welcome...look, just take a damn seat, would you? You look exhausted, you can rest for an hour at least.”

Nureyev still hesitated, though he was rather outed by the bruise like shadows under his eyes and the way his hands trembled lightly, like holding himself in his usual position was exhausting him. Eventually he took a seat with an expression like he’d have preferred to put a towel down first. 

Juno rolled his eyes and went to the kitchen. He’d started actually stocking it in the past few weeks, now when he opened the cupboards and reached in, he actually saw tea and cans, clean mugs and packets rather than spiderwebs, dust and maybe a rat. He picked up two teabags, accepting that he wasn’t going to be getting back to sleep tonight.

“See?” he looked over at Nureyev, clearly assembling the mugs of tea where he could see them, “Not poisoned, you can watch me.”

Nureyev tisked, most of his attention still on Bianca, “Dramatic…”

She’d nodded back to sleep, though her hand was still fastened on the front of Nureyev’s shirt like she would never let go. So gently, Nureyev removed it, pressing a soft kiss to the curled little fingers before easing her into her basket with practised ease, leaving his hands free to take the mug that Juno offered. 

“No wine?” Nureyev hummed in a tone that reassured that he was joking, he was clinging to the heat of the tea like a lifeline. 

“Nah,” Juno sat as far away as the sofa would allow, “Got rid of the booze after you dropped Bianca off.”

Nureyev stilled, eyes flickering to his and suddenly the distance between them felt like nothing, “I see.”

Feeling awkward, Juno looked away and cleared his throat roughly, “She’s, ah...she’s a good kid.” 

“I know,” Nureyev said softly, with all the conviction of a parent, “She looks...well. Thank you, Juno, I do mean it.”

“Like you said,” Juno shrugged, “Bare minimum.”

Instantly, the air between them froze so hard and fast it was a wonder their breath wasn’t visible. Juno cringed internally, cursing himself. Why did he always have to do that? Why was the first word out of his mouth always confrontational, pushing away anyone who got close?

He tried to save himself, adding quickly, “I just mean...I had it easy. You’ve been doing it all on your own since...you know, since then.”

Nureyev sat a little straighter, clearly already building one of his walls, “Well. When I make a decision, I give it my all. There’s no sense in doing it any other way.”

Juno risked a glance over to him, “But this isn’t stealing a mask or robbing a bank or whatever. It’s raising a kid. And you just...you just decided you were going to do it?”

There was a pause, like he was deciding how much to say and how to say it. Juno realised somewhere in the middle of that pause that he had no right to any of this information and was about to take it back when Nureyev spoke, his voice soft and far away. 

“I’m a selfish man, Juno. I act purely in my own interest, as you’ve observed. And the decision to keep Bianca was a selfish one, I can’t pretend otherwise. Please don’t think of me any other way.”

Juno felt his hackles rise though at what he couldn’t say, “I’ll think of you how my head tells me to think of you, Nureyev. I think you’re brave and selfless and...and everything you’ve done for Bianca is amazing. Believe me, I know shitty parents and you are not that, you are everything she deserves. She’s lucky. And if you don’t like me thinking that then...well, you’ll just have to deal with it.”

Nureyev looked at him, hands clasping and unclasping, “Detective, I have to say, you are one of the strangest and most perplexing people I have ever met on this and every other planet.”

Juno shrugged, unsure of how else to respond, still working on whether it was a compliment or not, “Well...I just don’t like to see you beating yourself up over nothing. You owe Bee Bee more than agonising over her existence.”

Nureyev’s eyes widened and he sat back, “What...what did you just call my daughter?”

Juno flushed red, “It’s what Rita calls her, shut up, it slipped out.”

Nureyev shook his head, caught between laughter, indignation and bewilderment, “My god…”

_ “Shut up!” _

He spread his hands placatingly, “Fine...and you are right, detective. It is far too late to be second guessing myself. Whatever reasons I had for keeping her, they don’t change what I have to do now which is to make the best life I can for her.”

Juno watched his face set into determination and confidence, as he’d seen it do so many times before, the set in his shoulders and upward tilt of his chin that had told him from the very first time he’d met him that Nureyev could do anything he set his mind to. That he could will things into being, change the shape of the world with sheer conviction and hard work and a clever plan. He would do right by Bianca, Juno knew that. He could continue to be the galaxy’s most notorious thief and would do it with her in tow. 

But still, he had to open his stupid mouth. 

“All by yourself?”

Nureyev looked at him, really looked at him, with eyes that had seen the stars and yet had still seen him as the most beautiful thing in the universe. Juno was reminded of the night they’d had together, how he had held him and touched him and made him believe in things he’d thought only existed in stories. Moment after moment, like fireworks going off against a dark sky, and Juno had  wondered if the goddess he was named for had ever received worship so complete and devoted. 

He’d made him think that hope didn’t have to be more pain than it was worth. He wanted to feel that way again. 

Acting without thinking, as he’d made a habit of all his life, Juno closed the distance between him and Nureyev and kissed him. Every time before it had been the other way around but this time  _ he _ kissed  _ him. _

It was a heartbeat before Peter’s hands came to rest on the side of his head and tilted him to deepen the kiss, press their mouths together more earnestly. Mirroring their first kiss but with the roles reversed, Juno pushing, Nureyev following, Juno throwing, Nureyev catching. 

And he could see it so clearly. He could be Dahlia Rose or pick a new name entirely, as long as it matched with his. He didn’t have to feel the fog inside him any more, he didn’t have to feel like he was pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll right back over him but he had to keep going because there was no one else to push. He didn’t have to be what a whole careless, unfeeling city needed him to be. He could be what he chose, he could feel happy as a default and not as a shock. He could be part of a family, father, daughter and mother. 

And that was what ruined it. That single word. That word with all it’s bitter memories and bruises that had never really healed and broken promises loomed up over him and stared him down.

And he flinched. 

Nureyev felt it and drew away, seeing it written plain as day on Juno’s face. And the walls came up higher and thicker than ever though not fast enough that he missed the heartbreak in his eyes, no less painful for it’s familiarity. 

He stood up and turned away, so fast it was like Juno’s skin was burning him suddenly. He pressed his fingers to his temples and bowed his head, “Why...why is it always you, every single time, of all the people in the goddamn universe, why are you the only one who can hurt me…”

Juno winced, “Peter…”

“Don’t!” he snapped, whirling round, “Don’t you dare, Juno Steel!”

Certain things were known to be true. Rain fell downwards, the Sun was the centre of the Solar System and Peter Nureyev did not cry. But there it was, his eyes glassy and shining in the light with fire and unshed tears that were moments away from spilling over. And it sent Juno reeling. 

“You know something?” Nureyev stepped forward, looking like his hand could go to the knife at his thigh any moment, “I wanted to call you so many times. Even when I couldn’t leave that goddamn hotel room on Brahma, my hand itched every day to go to my comms and call you and tell you everything. When she was being born and I’d never felt so alone and I thought I was dying, I came two presses of a button from doing it. Because part of me always wondered, always hoped, if I’d told you, if I’d dialled that number burned into my brain and told you I was pregnant would it have made a difference? Would it have changed your mind? And now I know.”

Nureyev wouldn’t let his tears fall but Juno did and they burned on his cheek, “Peter, I’m sorry, but this isn’t fair, you’re angry at me for not wanting something I’m just not ready for…”

“ _ Do you think I was ready?”  _

His shout filled the small space and then Bianca’s cry shattered the night, piercing and frightened and heartbreaking. Both of them went for her at the same time but Nureyev bared his teeth so fiercely that Juno recoiled instantly. He softened as soon as she was in his arms, curling around her protectively and murmuring softly to soothe her, standing. 

“My treasure, it’s okay, everything is fine, I’m here now…I’m sorry, daddy’s sorry...” 

Eventually her crying stopped, turning to spluttering as she buried her face against his front like just the smell of his cologne comforted her and allowed those delicate, long fingered hands to hold her. Juno felt a stab of absurd jealousy that made him hate himself even more than he currently did. 

Nureyev took a deep breath as soon as Bianca was calm again, it came out as a shudder. And when he looked up, there were no more tears in his eyes. 

“I wasn’t ready to be faced with the decision that fell into my lap,” he spoke coldly, like he believed in his words with all his heart because it was the only thing he could do, “But I didn’t get the luxury of pushing it away. And I made my choice, for whatever reasons. And I am living with them as best I can.”

Juno slumped on the sofa, feeling like his limbs were made of lead, “Peter…”

“You know my father, Juno, don’t you?” Nureyev bulled past his words, sensing there was nothing behind them, “You saw it all, you know everything. He was soft, he was kind, he was brave and he thought the world of me. And he was a  _ lie.  _ A fantasy cooked up by some two bit con artist who wanted to use me for his own gain. The father I’d hung all of my hopes and dreams and personality on was a complete fiction.”

The pain in his voice was so raw and so real, Juno was consumed with the twin urges to hold him and turn and run from him. 

“But I have made him real,” there wasn’t a shake in Nureyev’s voice any more, “I have remade myself into that lie from the ground up and I have brought him to life and stepped into his skin. All for her. All for my daughter. So don’t you dare dangle false hope in front of me now and yank it away. Don’t you dare ruin everything I’ve made for her with your cowardice.” 

Juno looked at Bianca, perfect and beautiful and so fragile, clutching Nureyev but looking at him with uncertainty, not liking the raised voices and the sharp words, not liking that he was crying. She could become anything she wanted to be but whatever it was, it would be amazing. 

And he would see none of it. 

“I think you’d better go,” he rasped, voice thick and heavy with tears. 

“I agree,” Nureyev’s voice was clipped and professional again, like the outburst embarrassed him, “Goodbye, detective. Enjoy saving Hyperion City.”

He shouldered the bag of Bianca’s things he’d apparently already packed and quickly made for the door. But as he did, Bianca piped up, squawking, reaching her hands out over her daddy’s shoulder. Reaching for Juno. 

Nureyev’s expression turned to ice, seeing his daughter straining to reach the man who’d broken his heart three times now. His eyes snapped to Juno to see what he would do. 

Juno looked at her, swallowed hard and turned away towards his bedroom. The fog inside him had never felt so thick, thick enough to choke him, enough that you would get lost in it and never find your way out. Already he could feel his senses dulling, the inability to care settling over him like a wet blanket, like the worst kind of drenching rain. 

“Bye kiddo,” he murmured, not looking back. 

He heard Nureyev’s noise of satisfaction, sounding ever so slightly forced, and Bianca’s soft sound of dismay. And he heard the door shut. 

He walked back to his bed and laid on his side, staring into nothing, not feeling the salt dried onto his cheek, not feeling the ache in his chest. Not feeling much of anything. 

Rita would be shocked at his call the next morning, telling her sharply that they were reponening and to get herself back to the office. She would see his absent arms, the downward turn to his mouth that had returned when it was so close to disappearing forever. She wouldn’t ask where Bianca had gone, she wouldn’t ask to come over for dinner again, though it made her heart hurt so fiercely. She would nod and go sit back at her desk. 

Things would return to normal, Juno back as the PI trying to do some good in a city where the word had lost all meaning, He would throw himself into cases where he’d rejected them before, just to have something to do. And he would fall into something bigger and more dangerous than he could imagine. 

But that was for later. For tonight, he would lie there and recognise the raw edged hole in his heart that he couldn’t feel. And exhaustion and a desire to simply not be conscious any more would eventually claim him.

And he would dream of birdsong and soft dark hair beneath his fingertips. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nearly two years after their last meeting, Nureyev finds a certain detective back in his life, one he'd hoped never to see again.
> 
> Time jump! This happens just before the end of season 2!

Nureyev had always loved the stars. They’d been an escape to a small, scared boy with no home, no safety, no guaranteed next meal, nothing but a name. No matter where he had wound up sleeping, however empty his stomach was, how close the last laser shot had sounded, as long as he could see the stars he could imagine something better. A thousand other plants, most of which had never had a single human step on their surface, so far away he could blot them out with a thumb. Surely with all of those chances, all of that possibility, there just had to be something better than this. And as long as Peter knew that, he could keep going. 

He’d always loved the stars, he’d needed them as much as he needed food and oxygen, he’d needed the escape and possibility. But he’d never thought they were beautiful until he saw them through his daughter’s eyes. 

Nureyev tried to give Bianca routine where he could. So much of their life was completely uncertain, though not in the same way it had been when he was a child. Nureyev was endlessly grateful for that and there was no amount he wasn’t willing to part with to keep it that way. Their uncertainty was more about what planet they would end up on, what hotel they would stay in, what names he would give for them at the front desk. It was about the endlessly rotating faces around them, people slipping into roles rather than actual personalities, everything always shifting and changing. It would be so easy to lose yourself in all of that, feeling like you were becoming as ephemeral and insubstantial as everything else. Nureyev knew that well.

So he tried to anchor them whenever he could. And this was one of the ways he did that, one of Bianca’s favourite things. 

The shuttles that ferried people around the solar system were microcosms of the planets they served. One floor of almost sickening luxury built to hold the scant few people who could afford it and the rest of the pot bellied space vessels given over to much grimmer quarters for everyone else. Nureyev had treated himself to a seat on the upper floor a few times, always after he was feeling smug about a particularly high profile job. But, in truth, he preferred sitting in the lower decks. The view was better there. No over attentive staff, no distracting screens on every surface vying for your attention, no live entertainment on the longer flights. No assuming that the majesty of space itself, the stars winking in the darkness, the faraway galaxies smudged against the sky, wouldn’t be enough to hold your attention. You could sit down there, feel like no one and stare out at space that held it all together. 

Nureyev always got a window seat and sat his daughter on his knee, ignoring the adjoining seat he had to purchase for her. Bianca would usually sleep through the noisy takeoff, making her daddy marvel at her ability to snore through the racket of interstellar engines blasting burning fuel just a few meters away but wake up immediately in a soft, comfortable bed if he so much as shifted while holding her. 

But as soon as they were surrounded by space and that eerie silence descended, Nureyev would gently nudge her awake, knowing she wouldn’t want to miss a second of it. No matter how many times she’d seen it before, whether it was their tenth or fiftieth or thousandth journey, it never seemed to dim the awe and delight on Bianca’s little face as she would stand, wobbly and uncertain on her little legs, in her daddy’s lap and press her face to the reinforced glass, making her indistinct babyish noises of excitement. As she got older, they began to coalesce into words, mostly just repeating ‘stars’ and ‘bootiful’ to herself in a whisper, clutching Nureyev’s sleeve tightly like she was worried he couldn’t see them and needed to be shown. 

And then she would grasp at them, her fingers brushing against the window, like she was trying to pluck them from the vast expanse that couldn’t really be called a sky if you had no ground to stand on. Like she could open her adorably chubby little hand and see one twinkling there, as small as it appeared from their vantage point, and hold it out to her daddy, a gift of one of the shiny things she knew he liked so much. 

Her little face would crinkle in disappointment after a few failed attempts, though it wouldn’t stop her trying again next time. Nureyev would smile and touch her cheek lightly and remind her that he didn’t need stars. He had his most precious treasure, better than anything else the universe could produce. 

It didn’t matter how many times he had to remind her. He would mean it wholeheartedly, every single time. 

Then he would help her find a more comfortable position and tell her the stories, ancient and crumbling thousands of years before now but still living on. He would tell her about Andromeda and Cassiopeia, Delphinus and Orpheus’ lyre and the mistakes of Orion. Too young to understand nine words in ten, she would still listen attentively and fix her eyes on the stars, in love with the worlds her daddy painted with them. Whether the journey was an hour or ten or a day, Bianca would listen and sleep and listen again, almost eerily quiet and well behaved. A child who had learned very early on that when her daddy asked her to be still, she had better listen or alarms might start going off. 

Nureyev would always have a destination in mind for them, it would never do to step off a shuttle and not immediately know your next move. If he’d thought himself careful before he had Bianca, then afterwards he was nothing short of fanatically meticulous. Maps of whatever city they arrived in, shortest routes in and out of major buildings, dedicated assessments of how lax the police force were in certain districts, he kept all of it behind his eyes as he’d walk through the streets with his head held high and Bianca in her sling, sleeping or peering out silently but curiously against his chest. 

Never the same hotel twice, even if it was a planet he’d been on before, there was no sense in taking silly risks. There never had been but there was even less now. Fake creds, fake names, fake ID, basic stuff he’d learned so long ago and had hammered into him so many times that it was part of his DNA, like the instincts that told him to pull in air and to walk upright. 

Bianca would always seem hesitant at first, though she’d never cry. The unfamiliar smells and too bright, too packaged newness of their suite would bring out nothing more than hunched shoulders and maybe a soft whimper, if it was especially late or their last escape had been particularly harrowing, though those were becoming very few and far between to Nureyev’s relief. Still, it would make his chest ache. 

Fortunately they had another little ritual. Nureyev would sweep the blankets and pillows off of the bed, merrily ruining their crisp whiteness and dumping them onto the floor. As it happened, the skills he so prized as a thief- clever hands, adaptability, dogged determination- were also incredibly useful when it came to constructing a blanket fort, no matter the shape of the room, the amount of materials they’d been left with or how exhausted he was. 

It didn’t need to be big, just perfectly sized for him and Bianca, the top of his head usually scraping the roof of it. No matter the colour of the light that filtered through the sheets or the noise from the city outside, no matter what dirt of what planet sat beneath them, as long as they were in their little den, curled up close like a fox and his cub in a cosy bolt hole, they felt like they were home. Bianca would open up like a flower, lying on her back and cooing happily, kicking her little legs and mauling her poor cloth cat, carefree in a way she only ever was when she was truly safe. 

And she would look up at Nureyev like he hung the moon. Like he’d made the stars she loved so much. 

And Nureyev would know he’d found that something better he’d dreamed of as a child. 

He hadn’t thought it would still hurt so much. He’d been pretending for so long, longer even that he’d known where they were going and who they were going to collect, even longer than he’d been practising his smile in the mirror and dredging up memories he’d wanted to bury, deliberately plucking them up out of their boxes in his most vulnerable moments as training exercises. 

There had been more than Nureyev had thought. His face as he’d commanded,  _ demanded _ , that a towering, insane Martian anthropologist let go of Nureyev with undeniable fire in his eyes. His furrowed brow when he was just a few clicks away from solving a case, that moment of held breath before he made everything make sense. How he’d looked in the hospital with the bandage over the fresh ruin of one eye, how he’d looked so scared and so young, wracked with nightmares and clinging to Nureyev’s hand. How he’d looked in the shadowy light of his apartment, leaning in eagerly for a kiss before Nureyev had even told him to come here. 

How he had looked at Nureyev’s daughter when he’d woken up and she hadn’t been there, eye wild and dangerous and full of the same fire as before, even with one where there had once been two. A face Nureyev himself had worn so many times. A father’s face.

Nureyev had let these memories loose where he’d once held them so carefully. And he’d beaten each one, forced it to be small enough to carry. He’d let them tear at him until he was a wash of internal wounds and forced them to heal. He’d said his name over and over, hearing the sound of it until it became just another word. 

So why had it still hurt so much?

“Hello Juno. It’s been a while.”

It had come out as smoothly as he’d wanted it to, unconcerned and light as if the two of them had simply bumped into each other at a coffee shop with nothing in their past thornier than perhaps an awkward conversation at a birthday party. All of it perfectly orchestrated, right down to the way Nureyev perched on the Ruby 7 like a cat, to the way his lips fell open just so, making his smile a perfect mix of predatory and indifferent. I could pluck you from the sky and snap your neck in an instant, little bird, but why would I bother? 

But inside it had felt like drowning. 

Because he was there, he was standing right there with his ridiculous expression like he didn’t understand anything going on around him in that ratty, out of style overcoat that Nureyev wanted to burn and partly wanted to pull around him just to feel how warm it would be. Still with the eyepatch, clearly totally unconcerned with matching it to his outfit, with a tiny duffle bag over one shoulder that apparently contained all the trash from that sad little apartment he’d thought worth taking into space. 

Juno Steel was standing in front of him, close enough to touch within a few strides, and Nureyev wanted to run. 

But he couldn’t. He needed this job, he needed to be part of this crew. So he’d had to smile his practised smile, eye him like nothing mattered and never show that it burned like bad whiskey. 

At least Nureyev had been able to make a quick exit after that, pointedly excusing himself from the hand shaking and the secretary’s loud introductions. He’d done as Captain Aurinko had asked and his own pride had demanded and he’d come off the worse. He didn’t need to do any more. And there was somewhere else he needed to be.

His bunk was as far from the others as the layout of the Carte Blanche would allow, for good reason. Bianca hadn’t taken well to settling in one place for so long, especially somewhere that creaked and groaned with decompression like some irritated beast, where there were other people she didn’t know, where things were just different. Where she could tell something was bothering her daddy that he wouldn’t share and wasn’t fixing. Neither of them had been getting much sleep lately. 

Fortunately, when he pushed back the door, his daughter was still napping, curled up in their blanket, her fists pressed up against her face. Now a year and a half old, she’d become such a person. He knew that was a silly thing to think, she’d always been a person. But she’d solidified somehow in the year and change since he’d first held her and hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with her. Her arms and legs were now arms and legs rather than chubby things she could only fling about gracelessly. Her shapeless dark fluff had turned into curls that flowed and bounced. Her face still had babyish roundness but she had more expressions now, her eyes had an awareness when they weren’t closed in sleep. She had more control, more personhood than she’d seemed to before. She could wobble a few hesitant steps, she could babble the half word dada over and over and break his heart. 

She was growing, more and more every day. It made Nureyev thankful for moments like this, when he could just sit by her and watch her be still, on momentary pause, like maybe he could keep her this small forever. Like she would never outgrow his arms. 

Nureyev sighed and told himself he was being maudlin, leaning back against the wall. But he was finding it hard to muster up any other emotion, knowing Juno Steel had weaseled his way aboard their fresh start and was rattling around in this tin can with the rest of them.

He would have argued, offered to find any other one eyed former detective, even if he had to put out the other eye himself. He would have walked and found some other ship full of colourful misfits to take him and Bianca around the galaxy. 

But his options were limited and his time was running out. And how many other thieving crews would make a man with no name and a toddler welcome? Buddy had been more understanding than Nureyev had dared hope when he’d admitted that it wouldn’t just be him joining the crew of the Carte Blanche. Maybe it was her strange ideas about them being more family than crew, perhaps she thought a baby would cement that or at least be a nice ornament to her tableau. 

Nureyev didn’t care. He’d found somewhere Bianca could be safe long term, somewhere he could be sure she’d still be if he had to leave for a few hours on a job. Not painlessly, of course, but dependably. And that was the best he thought he’d get. 

Juno arriving took all of that, screwed it into a ball and threw it with bad aim at a wastepaper basket. And now all the boxes Nureyev kept for things he couldn’t deal with felt about to split and even looking at his daughter, soft and sweet and sleeping, made his chest feel tight in a way he couldn’t stand. Looking at her, all he could see was the eyes that were a brown so much darker than his own, practically black, and the curls that didn’t come from his fine, silky hair. The darker skin and the broad nose and the scowl she could bring out sometimes that gave him a double take. All he could see were the parts he hadn’t given her, the proof that she hadn’t come from nowhere. The parts that made it complicated. 

Nureyev reached over and pushed back a delicate curl of hair that had fallen over her face, leaving his fingers there a few seconds longer than was necessary. Bianca shifted gently and calmed, her face relaxing a shade more than it had been before, as if the brush of his fingertips had been enough to soothe her and chase away bad dreams. 

His love for her struck him fiercely, as it always did, like low, constant embers flaring up into a roaring blaze. 

Her DNA didn’t matter. It never had. Juno’s contribution had been all of a second, a throwaway moment neither of them had noticed. Her eyes, her hair, it wasn’t Juno’s. It was hers. 

She didn’t need him and neither did Nureyev. They had never needed anything but each other. 

Seized by some kind of mad energy, the need to do something and be good at it, Nureyev got up, using all his cat burglar instincts to not rock the bed in the slightest and wake up Bianca. Maybe he would mend the dress she tore last week or try and salvage the blanket he’d been attempting on and off to knit for her since she was born. Something that would push Juno Steel entirely from his mind. 

Until he opened the door and came face to face with him. 

Juno immediately looked as guilty as any criminal he’d ever caught, hand frozen halfway to knocking, jaw opening but no words coming out. 

Nureyev, too caught off guard to manage his emotions, scowled, “Who told you this was my room?”

Juno’s eye darted from left to right, “Buddy? She gave us a tour…”

“Well, I don’t know why she’d think that was relevant,” he tried to keep his face impassive while internally running around frantically for something to hold on to. 

“Well...her exact words were ‘if you’re wondering the sound of the baby crying is coming from, it’s Ransom’s room third from the left’...is that what you’re calling yourself? Ransom?”

Nureyev could have throttled him, “Would you like to announce that a little louder, Juno Steel?”

Immediately he flushed, biting down on his lip like that could have stopped the words from coming out, “Um...sorry, yeah...I didn’t...sorry.”

“Did you come to my door just to loudly announce my trade secrets? Or is there another reason?” Nureyev dropped his voice to the appropriate level, low and quiet so as not to reverberate down metal hallways. And not to wake sleeping children. 

The detective- former detective- was truly flustered now, as Nureyev liked him. Seeing him from the top of the gangplank had been disconcerting, seeing Juno Steel back in his life. But now he was up close, stammering and blushing in his doorway, it threw Nureyev for a whole different reason. Not because it was the same Juno Steel he’d known.

Because he was so different. 

He stood straighter than he had before, though not in a way someone would square up for a fight. His eye was clearer, like there weren’t so many shadows behind it. There were more lines on his face but he wasn’t settled into them as a default, they sat there rather as a map rather than a guide, not as inevitable. He looked older, which wasn’t surprising as it had been a year since they’d laid eyes on each other. But it was...different. The difference that didn’t come with time but with experience. 

Juno Steel had grown, it was written all over his face. And Nureyev didn’t know what to do with that at all. The nerve of it. 

“I wanted to talk to you, Nureyev,” Juno swallows, like he was mentally starting over, “Because...well, I thought it was obvious?”

“You thought incorrectly,” Nureyev said, biting the end off each word, “I see nothing we need to discuss.”

Juno looked dismayed at that, “Really? We’re just going to pretend none of it happened? Look, you’ve got every right to be upset with me…”

_ I don’t _ , Nureyev thought, chest clenching at the words. _ Because if you’ve changed, you’re no longer the lady who broke my heart, you’re someone new, someone who has his demons under control and there’s every chance you’ll find your way back in.  _

“...but I’ve done a lot of thinking and a lot of reflecting and...and there’s a lot of damage I’ve done that I want to start fixing. I was an asshole, Nureyev. I mean, I still kind of am but I’m trying. And...and I need to start with you. And her.”

_ No. Don’t you dare, Juno Steel.  _

Nureyev stepped forward, giving Juno barely a second to jump back out of his way. He was about to close the door, like he could close off Juno’s words as easily but that was when they both froze, instincts firing at the soft sleepy babble. 

Binaca was sat up, the blanket rucked up around her waist, hands pawing at it like a content kitten. Her hair was a bird's nest, her eyes still heavy with sleep and confusion, mumbling indistinctly for her dada. 

Nureyev heard a soft inhalation from Juno, eyes flickering over to see his scarred face lined with grief of all things. Grief for the countless moments in between now and then, perhaps, the ones he’d missed. That he’d turned his back on.

Bianca seemed to wake up more, her eyes widening and her little mouth opening. Her arms came up and stretched out, fingers grasping like they grasped at the stars. But not for Nureyev. 

For Juno. 

Nureyev shoved the sadness aside as hard as he could, not caring if it went in a box or not, just needing it out of his way, dredging up anger to replace it. He shut the door as he’d been planning, bringing it too with a dull slam. 

“Listen,” he rounded on Juno, who was still standing there in some kind of shock, hurt clear on his face, “I am not interested in anything you have to say. I think two times is more than enough for someone to hurt you before you say no more. We will live on the same ship, we will work as the same crew but that is the absolute extent of my involvement with you. Is that clear?” 

Juno looked ready to argue, some of the lady Nureyev had known resurfacing on his face.  _ Good,  _ he thought,  _ show me this isn’t real. Show me it’s an act. Then I can go back to being angry with you and it can all make sense again. I’ll feel safe. _

But then it faded and the resigned grief was back. And Nureyev felt something inside him, buried deep, crack with the knowledge he’d caused it. 

“Fine,” Juno sighed heavily, “You’re not ready, I can understand that.” 

“Not ready implies that this conversation will be happening in the future,” Nureyev’s voice was acidic, “Am I not being direct enough with you? I have no interest in your justifications for your behaviour. By all means, repeat them to yourself over and over as many times as you wish, however long it takes to be comfortable with your choices again. But do not bother yourself to repeat them to me, I have no need. It would imply that I care.” 

Juno winced, as Nureyev had wanted him to right up until the second after he did it. He looked so wounded, like his words had punched a pinhole right through him. Nureyev refused to feel the pinch of regret at the back of his mind. 

“Welcome to the Carte Blanche, Juno Steel,” he said coldly, going back into his room and slamming the door again. It wasn’t gentlemanly but there was little else to be done. 

Bianca’s arms dropped sadly to her sides, eyes full of dismay. Her bottom lip began to do that wobbling dance that signified tears in the very near future.

“Darling,” Nureyev groaned, folding his arms around her, bringing her close to his chest, “Please, no. Everything’s okay…”

Bianca disagreed, mumbling unhappily against him, repeating ‘dada’ over and over like she was looking for answers. The front of his shirt began to grow damp with tears he’d caused. 

Nureyev sighed shakily, trying to martial his thoughts and control his emotions, trying to feel more like himself. He buried his face in his daughter’s hair, inhaling her powdery baby scent, reminding himself that Bianca Nureyev existed and as long as that was true, he couldn’t fall apart. 

After a while, he felt strong enough to sit back, like his spine and lungs would hold him up again. A moment later Bianca’s hands reached up to his face, patting his cheeks softly, cooing gently. Nureyev smiled, somehow, and kissed her searching little fingers. It was nice, he had to admit, to have someone there after he slipped away from himself. 

The Carte Blanche hadn’t lifted off yet, still sitting on what passed for a dock in the Cerberus Province. But the stars were visible, unfiltered, without the fading, swimming effect of any dome and Nureyev could see them through the little circular porthole window on the far wall. As deadly as the stars were, uncovered like that, it was beautiful. 

He felt the small boy that still curled up in the darker parts of his mind, one of his older boxes, stir. He felt him ache, looking at those stars with a desperate, fierce kind of hope that they held something better that could be his if he could only reach far enough. Nureyev shut him out too, after a moment. He didn’t need that any more. He would just keep moving forwards. 

And he wouldn’t be alone this time. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno and Nureyev learn to live together

It had been four days, not even a full week, and Nureyev was already losing his mind. 

Bianca only howled louder when he picked her up, this time right in his ear. Nureyev winced, jostling her, patting her back, feeling the anger of her flushed skin through the thin cotton of her pyjamas. He tried to fall back on everything he’d learned, everything he’d frantically researched on the long trip back from Brahma into solar planet space with an hours old Bianca curled up in one arm, everything he knew worked from times when she’d fallen ill or gotten herself in a state. But the truth was she’d never acted quite like this. 

She wasn’t sleeping, she wasn’t eating right, she was acting out in a way she just hadn’t before. She’d always been so good, quiet enough that Nureyev had pulled countless scores with her strapped up against his chest in a sling, calm enough that she’d never once given them away even in situations tenser than he’d ever wanted to get her in. 

But ever since they’d lifted off from the Cerberus Province, she’d been in some holy terror. There was just something about the Carte Blanche that Bianca did not like and refused to cooperate with. 

Nureyev dodged a flying fist and took her over to the window, hoping the sight of the stars would help calm her down, help her realise that this was no different from their previous hops between planets, just a little longer and with slightly more comfortable accommodation. When observed through the tight circle of the porthole, it was hard to believe they were even moving, the stars not even seeming to creep past. It was like looking up from the very bottom of the sea. 

But Bianca was having none of it. She only cried, sobbing ‘dada’ miserably over and over against his shirt, the silk of which was now soaked beyond saving. It was like she was begging him, desperately trying to make him see and understand. 

But he couldn’t. 

Nureyev held her closer in spite of the noise and the flailing, sighing deeply. He felt like he needed to apologise but when he wondered what for, so many unpleasant thoughts crowded on the end of his tongue that he couldn’t pull away fast enough, as if from a burning stove. 

Thoughts like why he’d ever assumed he could do this, why he’d ever thought he could be a father. Why he’d ever thought subjecting a young child to this kind of life, essentially reenacting all the wongs that had been done to him, had been a good idea. He could tell himself his intentions were good until he was blue in the face but didn’t they all say that?

Wouldn’t Mag have told himself the exact same thing? 

The name was enough to make himself start and he pushed it away, trying to force it into its box. But it was so hard, when he was so tired and empty and wrung out. He needed his wits about him to keep his mind in order, like prison guards with unruly tenants, and right now whatever wits he’d ever had were in pieces on the floor.

When it was clear the stars weren’t working their usual magic, Nureyev stood, not really knowing why but needing something to do. Perhaps a shower would help cool and soothe her or maybe a walk around the ship, though that would only make her distress echo through the halls all the more and Nureyev got the feeling his good will with the rest of the crew was eroding fast.

Except with one of them.

He’d been keeping his distance in an attempt to be respectful but it was impossible not to feel his presence like an itch. In the captain’s ridiculous family meetings, every glance the former detective stole in his direction felt like someone had flicked him on the ear. He’d stopped bringing Bianca to those things, not just because she screamed through them and made the transmission of information rather tricky but because that single brown eye kept dancing everywhere but on them, expect for those moments where he would slip. Those mistakes seemed to come more frequently than either of them would like. His secretary too, the one with the bright purple hair, would be looking too and would often glance furtively at her old boss, like she was waiting for him to do something or say something, like the silence was killing her. But Juno would set his jaw in that damn stubborn way and turn his eye elsewhere. 

But it wasn’t just that, it was Bianca herself. Nureyev had assumed a month when she was so small she was barely aware of anything around her wouldn’t have left such an imprint. He’d assumed because that felt so much more sturdy than simply hoping. But every time Juno was in her eye line, she would wriggle and attempt to make escapes Nureyev himself would never have dared. She would babble and bounce and coo, even stretch her arms out towards him. 

As soon as she started, Nureyev would quickly bundle her off, making some excuse out loud or in his head that no one would really believe. He’d walked away from dinners the captain had insisted he attend, strategy meetings, he’d turned back out of the kitchen when he’d needed a coffee more than he needed air in his lungs. He’d left Bianca in their room when she’d been crying, breaking his heart in the process of closing the door. 

Nureyev was being a fool, in short. And on top of that, he was being a poor member of the crew. The captain had talked about them as a cohesive unit, working together to achieve the impossible, each one of them part of the chain. And he was the weak link, he was the hinge who stuck, the corner that broke away. 

It was hurting his professional pride as much as it was his sense of identity. Some mornings, in the blissful few hours when Bianca’s exhaustion made her snatch a little sleep, he would stagger to the bathroom. Looking at himself in the mirror, flyaway hair and bleary eyes and no makeup, he would struggle to recognise himself. 

He could look at that man and tell himself he was Peter Nureyev, but what good were the words when he didn’t have the credentials?

Back in his own mind, in the present moment with a distraught daughter chewing miserably on his shoulder, Nureyev decided it was late enough to attempt a walk, maybe take her up to the observation deck. He’d been so excited to show her the view from beneath the blown out dome of the ship, he bet you could almost believe you were completely suspended in space, floating amongst it all. Sure every time he’d attempted it for her, she’d just cried but maybe this time it would work. 

Nureyev went to get her a coat, it was cold when you were surrounded by nothing but metal and the vacuum of space. Her booties too, in case she wanted to be set down, he needed to have something between her soft little soles and the grating. And of course her cat had to come…

Nureyev stopped, holding two of those items in his hand and realising he had no clue where to find the third. It must have been abandoned in the kitchen after the most recent of the meeting disrupting tantrums. Maybe once she had it back, she would calm down.

He pulled on her little coat and shoes, taking twice as long as usual with her flailing about, and went for the door, glad to at least have a goal in mind, a reason to move and make the dark thoughts chase him rather than sitting there as an easy target. 

He found his momentum thrown off when he trod on something soft in the dark hallway, making him stumble and Bianca lurch in his arms. He looked down, fingers twitching towards the knife at his belt on pure instinct, and saw the very cat he’d been about to hunt for. There was a note tucked under the ribbon around its neck. Once he’d adjusted to the simulated night of the Carte Blanche, he could read the handwriting from here. 

_ Found on the kitchen table. Thought B might be missing it- J. _

Part of Nureyev didn’t want to take his foot off the thing but he did, bending and rescuing it from underneath his heel. The note came with it, as well as the knowledge of Juno’s thought, his care, his attentiveness. Everything that might be contained with those glances he gave them and all that might be behind them. 

He folded the note between his fingers and put it in one pocket, wishing he could do the same with the thoughts crowding his mind. The cat he passed to Bianca, who’d been startled by the near fall and was clinging to him with tight little hands, sniffling quietly. 

“Look who found us, little treasure,” he murmured, trying a smile. 

Bianca looked at her cat, eyes wide and wet and bottom lip still pouched out. She reached out a hand to close around its neck, slackened by all the times she’d held it there while she slept or while she rested against him or while she threw it around happily. She held on tight, like she always did, since the one time she’d dropped it as they’d been creeping around a cathedral in search of some ancient scrolls a buyer had expressed interest in and Nureyev had been forced to break one of his rules of thieving and revisit a crime scene to retrieve it the next day. 

For a moment, he actually hoped the tears had run their course and the much loved toy had been enough this time. For a moment. Namely, the moment right before Bianca threw the cat fully in his face, knocking his glasses askew and began her wailing again with renewed force. 

Nureyev gave a deep, long sigh and started his walk to the observation deck, leaving the cat on the bedroom floor for now. 

Fortunately for everyone on board the Carte Blanche, there was only so much little lungs could take. There had to be some time, whether it was ten minutes, twenty or, if the stars were aligning, maybe even a full hour, where Bianca just physically couldn’t howl anymore. Nureyev tried to get as much done in that time as he possibly could, feeding her and himself in those snatched moments, risking journeys outside of his room safe in the knowledge that someone wouldn’t try and push them out of the airlock and have done with it. Probably the green haired medic, when he’d gone to her to ask if there was anything physically wrong with Bianca, she had looked positively murderous after his daughter accidentally caught her on the jaw with a swinging foot.

It wasn’t to say that things went back to normal when she wasn’t crying. There’d be a distance with Bianca, as her breathing would hitch and she’d tremble with the aftershocks of her tears. Nureyev would try and wipe the tears from her cheeks, he’d make funny faces and dredge up his most ridiculous voices he’d ever used for his personas, he’d tell her she was his treasure and he loved her but he wouldn’t get the response she used to give him. She’d just slump against him, boneless and sad in a faraway kind of way. In a lot of ways, it was worse than when she was filled with her fury. 

But she needed food and that was something Nureyev knew he could fix. So, with the lights on the ship simulating a late dusk, he walked with her down to the kitchen. Even if she could toddle on her own sometimes, he did not look forward to the day when he would reach down to her and she wouldn’t answer by stretching her arms up towards him, hands opening and closing. Even as exhausted as he was, as much as his muscles ached, he carried her gratefully. 

He was tired though. He couldn’t remember being so exhausted and feeling so helpless, not since the day Bianca was born. Even when she slept, he couldn’t, losing himself in just gazing at her, like studying her face would make it all click and he’d see how to help her. So he dragged himself rather than walked to the kitchen, not able to rouse enough energy to put on the usual straight backed swagger he’d made part of his identity. He actually slouched his shoulders, God help him. 

No one else was in the kitchen which was for the best. Nureyev had grown far too used to living alone to be fully adjusted to other bodies in his space yet. And he was so tired, it was very likely he’d put a hole through his alias that he couldn’t afford. 

He worked efficiently with one hand, putting together Bianca’s meal of paste of various colours. It looked entirely unappetising but his research showed it was one of the best brands out there in terms of vitamins and minerals for healthy growth. He sat down on the sagging old sofa, balancing her on one knee, the brightly coloured plastic tray on the coffee table. There was no fight in her tonight, she accepted each spoonful and raised barely a coo at his spaceship noises. Maybe she’d had enough of spaceships, living on one. And she didn’t eat as much as he’d like either before burying her face against her cat, who was apparently back in her good graces, and accepting no more. 

Nureyev sighed and acquiesced, setting down the spoon, “Well, we’re going to try again in a bit...you need your energy, little treasure.”

Bianca just murmured indistinctly, the cloth cat’s ear in her mouth, the remnants of her last spoonful staining his fur orange. 

He could get up and go back to his room, he  _ should  _ before someone else came in. But his legs were so leaden, he felt so strangely heavy and empty at once. Just a moment to let go and let his muscles slacken but of course not his hands, never his hands. 

He just wanted a moment. 

The next thing Nureyev was aware of was a shifting softness against him, the whisper of cloth. He frowned a little, turning his face into the pillow under his head, about to slip back into sleep, his consciousness just rising to the surface before sinking back under. 

Almost. Instead it froze solid and his eyelids snapped open. Where was Bianca?

Nureyev shot upright, too fast, his vision swimming. He was asleep, how could he have fallen asleep, what sort of father fell asleep when he was meant to be awake watching his child…

When his brain finally stopped spinning in his skull, the first thing he registered was a high sweet sound that soothed his panic but did nothing for his confusion. 

Bianca was laughing. She was  _ laughing.  _

Nureyev whirled around to see her, sitting up on the rug, her face bright with delight, grasping up at something. Her cat, being wiggled in an odd little dance and chuntering in a silly voice. Held by Juno Steel. 

He was grinning, the eye he still had crinkled in the corner with those creases that had knocked Nureyev off his feet the first time he’d seen them. He walked the cat back and forth in the air, letting Bianca grab for it, making it talk. He was dressed for sleep, slouchy faded trousers and a shirt that was hanging off one shoulder, slippers on his feet that were clearly a gift from Rita. But he’d never looked so animated, as he sat cross legged and played with Bianca.

“Gonna have to try harder than that, Chainmail Warrior, if you want to defeat this beast,” he challenged, moving it ever so slightly closer to her grasping hands, clearly ready to let her win in just a moment, before her delight turned to frustration. 

Bianca giggled, seeing victory within her grasp, rising up a little onto her knees, nearly overbalancing. But if she did, Juno would catch her. Nureyev knew he would catch her. 

“Bianca…” he croaked, sitting up further. He realised there was a blanket over him, a blanket identical to the one he’d been provided but also different. Juno must have taken it from his own bunk. Same for the pillow that had appeared under his head. 

Juno jumped, as if caught red handed, turning to him anxiously. Bianca snagged the cat when he wasn’t looking, hooting loudly in excitement, though her face dropped quickly when he didn’t praise her immediately. 

But she followed his gaze, realised Nureyev was watching them and only smiled the brighter, “Dada!”

_ This is how it could be _ , Nureyev thought, some part of him that had been in control when he was asleep,  _ if she was ours rather than mine. I could be waking up and looking at them both and seeing love in their eyes, being theirs… _

He slammed that door shut as fast as he could mentally make himself move. He needed no more scars. 

“Uh, sorry...Ransom,” Juno still looked guilty, like a kid caught in the middle of doodling on his desk, “You weren’t asleep for long, promise, I came in just as you were nodding off and decided you could use the rest so...so I was just keeping an eye on her. I was gonna put her back and walk away after an hour so you could wake up and…”

His eye slid down and Nureyev followed. Where Bianca’s tray of congealing food had been, instead there was a plate of food, the same pasta dish he’d seen Juno make for the rest of the crew but had always turned away before he could even offer some to him. It was still steaming and smelled good enough that his stomach woke up. 

“I would have done it, it’s just I thought it should cool down and we could play a little longer and...sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you…” Juno had shrunken in on himself, seeing his explanation wasn’t getting listened to, bracing himself for more anger. 

But Nureyev couldn’t find any. He shook and kicked every box, trying to wake some up but there simply was none. Which meant he could only feel sad and that hurt so much. 

“Apologies, Juno,” he eventually said, voice a bad imitation of his usual self, “That was a lapse on my part and…thank you for stepping in. I’ll take Bianca now.”

Though he hadn’t received the blow he’d been expecting, Juno still looked forlorn at that, “I don’t mind keeping an eye on her while you eat? When’s the last time you did that, I’ve never seen you actually-”

_ Stop it, please stop it. Don’t do this to me again, Juno Steel.  _

“Ah yes, very kind of you,” Nureyev burst out over him with false cheeriness, the only shield he could gather at such short notice, “Perhaps later, come Bianca…”

He lurched up, realising in the back of his mind that the smell of Juno’s skin would cling to him for who knew how long and what was that going to do to him, and reached for his daughter. She only looked sorrowful, eyes darting between him and Juno, beginning to whimper. 

Juno groaned, dropping his voice, “Nureyev…”

_ Don’t, not again, not again… _

He shook himself, starting to find some of that anger but at who he couldn’t say. He moved forward and plucked Bianca up off the rug, muscles already tensing like an animal ready to run. He was halfway turned, Bianca was halfway to another meltdown, when Juno spoke, voice barely a whisper. 

“What can I do to prove I won’t hurt you again, Nureyev?” 

He froze, the only sound left beyond the constant soundtrack of the creaking ship being Bianca’s stuttering pre-cries. His voice sounded so lost, so quiet. Heavy, like someone who knew exactly what they’d done wrong and couldn’t see a path away from the person he’d been. But still trying, still groping for some sunlight.

_ Please, Juno Steel. _

“I don’t know,” he eventually whispered. 

He wasn’t looking but he felt Juno sag, felt the fight go out of him. He heard him get up, with a muted groan at some old ache in his limbs. He heard him walk up behind him, saw him come into view, the bowl in his hand. 

“Please take it,” he sighed, holding it out towards Nureyev’s free hand, “Eat something. You look like death.” 

After a pause and half a hundred petty, vindictive actions quickly dismissed, Nureyev took it. 

“Thank you,” he said in a quiet voice. He’d gone hungry far too many times in his life not to take food when it was offered with good grace. 

Juno just nodded, still looking even more hurt than when Nureyev had exploded at him. He leaned in, kissed Bianca’s forehead and his eye dared the thief to deny him. He did not. 

“Night, Bee Bee, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he murmured, managing a smile for her as he patted her cheek. It fell away immediately when he raised his face back to Nureyev, “Goodnight, Ransom. We’re on that job together in two days, remember, the auction? Don’t fancy going in with a partner about to faint. So get some sleep.”

Nureyev’s heart sank at the thought but he didn’t let it show on his face, “Of course. Who do you think I am?”

Then he did smile for him, a sad and tired kind of smile with no sincere humour in it, “I know who you are, Peter Nureyev. I mean it, get some rest.”

He turned away first so Nureyev wouldn’t have to. Juno Steel was full of mercies tonight, it seemed. His footfalls echoed down the corridor even after he was out of sight, only disappearing with the click and thunk of his own door opening and closing in quick succession. 

Bianca, no longer about to cry, only pressed into him and mumbled softly, a collection of muddy syllables that weren’t quite a word yet. But when they were, the word would be  _ mama.  _

Nureyev straightened himself and shifted her slightly so he could hold her more securely. However much sleep he’d been able to snatch let him run around and force a lot of it into boxes, filing it away, reordering his mind. Maybe the time would come to open them again but the time certainly wasn’t now. 

There was the job. Zolotovna’s auction and the Gilded Globe of Reaches Far. And there was all the preparation that came with the job, the busy hours, sitting on his bed combing through his comms on sites that were never meant to be accessed, the crafting of a seamless personality, all while Bianca played contentedly on the floor or sat in his lap just like old times. There was the work, the chance to prove himself. The chance to feel like Peter Nureyev again. 

Juno Steel would have to wait.

As much as he’d missed her, Nureyev had to admit, rather guiltily, that he was glad Bianca was sleeping when he returned from the auction. He was exhausted and he was glad of the opportunity to just sit down and kick his shoes off, rub his aching feet and turn the events of the night over in his mind. With one hand resting tenderly on her sleeping shoulder, he tried to examine the ache inside himself with a distant eye. Unsuccessfully, every time he leaned in, it would reach out and take hold of him and he’d be unable to deny it was a part of him. He could try and shake it off but it would only spread and cling harder. 

He had come so close. There was no pretending it hadn’t happened, Nureyev had considered it. Signing himself away, agreeing to whatever Zolotovna would have asked of him, his pride and place on the team and even his sexuality be damned. Just to have things be easy. He told himself firmly that of course he’d have made Binaca part of it, he’d have come and collected her first, he’d come so close because of her. He told himself that and under no circumstances would he press further, far too afraid of what might be beyond that. 

But he hadn’t. Because he’d looked at Juno from across the ballroom, looking like one of the most distant, most beautiful stars had come loose from the sky and decided to attend the party, and he’d thought again of everything they could be. And he’d remembered who he was. He wasn’t Monsieur Dauphin, he was Peter Nureyev. 

And he’d come home. 

Bianca yawned, turning over in her sleep, her dark curls spreading around her face like she was underwater or floating in space. Rita had been watching her while they were at the party and said she’d been a dream, falling right asleep twenty minutes before they came back. Nureyev tried to just be grateful. 

“Well done,” he murmured to her softly and he’d repeat it when she woke up, “Well done...Bee Bee.” 

It was worth a try. It was a pretty cute name, actually. 

Nureyev leaned in and kissed her forehead, just as a knock came on his door. Still dressed in his elaborate, expensive suit from the auction, just barefoot, he decided he was decent enough and went to open the door. 

Buddy stood in the hallway, looking relaxed as ever, as if she’d been anticipating their success all along. She didn’t even greet him, just looking past his shoulder into the room, smiling softly at Bianca. 

“She really is a peach, isn’t she?” she hummed with all of the familial pride of a grandmother, which Nureyev had always found a little presumptive but it wasn’t in him to argue tonight, “Mind if we have a talk, Ransom? Come in the hallway, I wouldn’t want to wake your little roommate. We all know what would happen then and everyone’s ear drums are only just finished healing....”

Nureyev frowned. Maybe he was in the mood to argue. But he did as she asked, closing the door gently behind him. 

And they talked. Well, mostly Buddy talked and he listened, both as Ransom and as Nureyev. But sometimes it was good to listen. He had the feeling he’d not been doing that enough lately. 

When the captain left him, it was a few moments and a few deep breaths before he went back inside. Bianca still slept soundly, hugging her cat to her chest, face buried in it’s fur. Nureyev smiled and wondered if she dreamed of stars. 

He’d only managed to take off his tie and his jacket before the second knock came. This one he’d been expecting. 

Juno Steel had taken off his dress and clearly showered, judging by the way his hair sat a little flatter than usual, but the remnants of glitter still dusted his cheekbones, catching the simulated almost dawn. He wouldn’t get that out for weeks. And he still wore one set of the earrings, studs in the shape of stars, looking simple on their own without the rest of the gold that had dripped from his ears all night. Had he forgotten they were there or did he just like them and wanted to keep them? Suddenly Nureyev’s heart was aching to know. 

“Uh, hey...Ransom,” Juno looked awkward and so different, with it all stripped away. But he still sounded the same, “Can we, ah...talk? I know you weren’t ready before but it feels like we...ought to.”

“I agree completely,” Nureyev said simply, closing the door behind him. 

“Now, before you slam the door, let me...wait, what?” Juno blinked, starting a little, “What did you say?”

Nureyev took a breath and steadied himself, “I agree that we should talk. And I also agree that I didn’t want to before though I’d say you’ve put it very charitably. I was...not kind to you, Juno. To say the very least.”

Juno still wore the expression he’d had in the split second before he’d gone over on his heels on Zolotovna’s red carpet, “I mean...after what I did to you and...and Bianca…”

“That was a mistake,” Nureyev shakes his head, pushing his glasses up his nose with his forefinger, a nervous tic he’d thought he’d trained himself out of in his teenage years, “A mistake with motivations and I’ve made far too many of those myself to judge you as harshly as I have.”

Juno shuffled from one foot to the other, “I...I just want to show you I’ve changed, Peter. And I know that sounds hollow the second time around and I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to but…”

Nureyev cut him off with a hand, “The last time you hadn’t changed, you were the same lady who left me in that hotel room.”

“And...and now?”

He bit his lip, making himself look into his dark eye, reflecting the gold on his cheeks like they were still in that ballroom but now with their own names and their own faces, “And now…”

That was when the third knock came. The one neither of them had been expecting. The one so loud it was impossible to pin down the source, so loud each of them felt like it was coming from inside their skulls. And then came the tearing. 

Screeching, screaming metal erupted around them and both of them were thrown as the ship tilted dangerously. Nureyev felt himself cry his daughter’s name but it was lost in the shuddering wrenching, the burst of pain as the back of his head connected with the left hand wall and he lost his vision for a few moments. It wouldn’t have made sense anyway, the axis of the universe lurched sickeningly so his feet were above his head and the ceiling was the floor. The only thing that did make sense was the strong grip on his arm, his one anchor. 

It didn’t last forever, the Carte Blanche eventually settled, shuddering like an animal in pain as it rocked back to the position demanded by its weight distribution. The back of Nureyev’s head felt wet but it was a far away, detached part of his mind that noticed that. Everything else was focused on one thing. 

“Bianca!” he shouted, pouncing for the door, wrenching it open while the same untethered part of his brain wondered why it seemed so heavy when it didn’t before. 

Yawning, sucking, hungry emptiness. His eyes saw nothing but blackness, peppered with stars, raw edges of a room that wasn’t there any more, simply gone like something had come along and taken a bite out of the ship. 

_ No… _

Familiar, strong hands yanked him back and the door closed, “Nureyev, you can’t!”

And then he was fighting, all semblance of composure and cool gone, screaming his daughters name, screaming for Juno to let go, he had to get her, he had to go save her, why didn’t he see?

And that floating, detached voice murmuring that it was too late, it was far too late. She was gone. 

“Nureyev, we’ll figure it out, we’ll figure something out, I promise, but you can’t go out there!” Juno shouted, never once slackening his grip, taking every blow and scratch even as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and his lip swelled. Had the crash done that? Or had he? 

_ Don’t stop, don’t listen because then comes the realisation, the truth, that’s when you break.  _

There were echoing footsteps coming towards them, multiple sets, Buddy barking orders, Rita mumbling fretfully, Vespa snarling. 

It was only Jet’s voice that mattered, cutting above the rest. 

“It was a drone,” he projected his voice out, not shouting, he never shouted, “I saw it from the cargo bay, an unmanned drone. It took her.”

Nureyev stopped, laser focused on him now, eyes still wild but sharp, “What did you say?” 

Jet didn’t flinch, even when confronted by a man half insane, “Your daughter, the drone took her. It sealed her inside itself then tore the room away as it disconnected. The intention was likely to make you think she was dead.” 

Nureyev felt the panic pressing against his fury, threatening to break through and render him useless, “Where is it going?  _ Where?” _

“That I cannot say, it had no identifying features,” Jet continued implacably, “But it was a short haul vessel, built to travel no more than a day. Wherever she is being taken, it is not far.”

“Then there isn’t a second to waste,” Buddy jumped in immediately, eyes hard with determination, “Check the security tapes, every single angle, there has got to be something about that drone that we can identify. Contacts on nearby planets, I want eyes open in every seedy port where someone would take something they didn’t want other people to see, every smuggler’s den. If someone has any favours owed, now is the time to call them in.”

Nureyev tried to follow along, he swam towards the actions, the need to move and do and fix. But he was drowning in images of Bianca, sobbing in terror, crying out for him, trapped behind cold glass and adrift in space, not knowing if he would come and save her. And he didn’t know either. 

That was when the universe tilted again, this time in total silence, as he sank to his knees, fists clenched tight on the metal floor, the grating digging impressions into his skin. His eyes burned and his vision swam and his lungs were inert in his chest, unable to take in any air. All he could hear was his daughter crying. 

But then there were those hands on his arms, that stabilizing, firm presence by his side. Juno’s face was drawn in agony, eye wide and fearful but still he clung tightly to Nureyev. 

“We’ll get her back, Peter,” his voice was steady, despite the tears in his eye, “I promise. Whoever took her, we’ll find them and we’ll bring her home. I know we will.”

Nureyev looked at him, hands finding his forearms and gripping on tight. He recalled another time like this, racing across the Martian desert, facing the enormous maw of an ancient tomb and every horror they could imagine within. He remembered a man, so far from who he was in that moment, saying they would make it through. He’d been right, that man, and here was Juno Steel with the same fire in his eyes, making the same promise. 

His lungs heaved in his chest, taking in the stale air, still sharp with the ozone that had rushed in through the open door. As he always did when things grew too chaotic to handle, he told himself the facts.

He was Peter Nureyev. This was Juno Steel. And they would bring their daughter home. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno and Nureyev bring their daughter home

Nureyev’s eyes had been fixed for the last twenty minutes, staring out of the window of the med bay, oblivious to the tugging sensation at the back of his head as Vespa stitched his wound closed.

Every so often, one of the stars he saw would shift or turn, suspended in the invisible molasses of space but moving by some impulse that had fled hours ago, and he would realise it wasn’t a star at all. It was an earring, a necklace, a bracelet. Some fragment of his life that had been torn away with the drone’s retreat and scattered out into an unreachable, empty coldness. Things he’d treasured at one point that were now lost to him, even though they seemed so close, just past the thick, reinforced glass. If he had the inclination to lift his hand, he could have pressed the tips of his fingers against the window and felt those impassable inches that may as well have been miles. 

He would have, if he’d cared. But he barely saw the stars or the not stars, he only saw the distance between them. The miles and miles that stretched between where he was now and wherever his daughter was. And he was sitting here, doing nothing, eyes and cheeks burning with drying salt, shame pooling in the bottom of his stomach like acid. 

He’d allowed himself to crack. He’d sobbed and lashed out and collapsed the way he’d told himself he would never do because it was amateurish and childish and everything he’d been taught that master thieves did not do. And because of it he’d cost them minutes that were more valuable than any amount of gold and silver and diamonds now floating in the slight gravitational orbit of the Carte Blanche. 

Because it was only after his panic had run its course, burning down into something he could use rather than something that debilitated him, did he remember. Only when his throat opened up again was he able to choke out the words. And he would spend the rest of his life thinking about how things would have been different if he’d only acted quicker. 

Vespa finally stood back and there was a single, high chime as she dropped the bloody needle into the metal tray beside her, “Right. Now do not move, I’m doing one set of stitches so if you open them back up, better get some glue.”

Nureyev’s eyes flashed, “If you think for one second I am staying on this ship-”

“Who do you take me for?” Vespa demanded angrily, moving back into his field of vision and wiping her hands on a sterile cloth, “Do not move between now and when we land and  _ then  _ you can wreck as much shit as you want.” 

Nureyev was far beyond relaxing at this point but he fell silent, accepting that and turning back to the window. Still Vespa lingered, a lime green smudge on the edge of his eye, looking like she wanted to say something but couldn’t get it out. 

Eventually she managed, voice low and rough like a lioness trying to give comfort, “Ransom...we’ll get her back. And if they’ve hurt a hair on her head, we’ll make their deaths that much slower.”

Nureyev felt the many knives concealed under his fresh clothes pressed against his skin until the barrier just disappeared under the constant, cool weight and they were practically part of his skeleton. He pulled himself away from the window to give Vespa a tight, grateful nod. 

Clearly relieved that was the end of it, she left him alone with another reminder not to move. Nureyev listened, though he’d usually disagree on sheer principle, holding himself as still as his fast rising bruises would allow. He could follow rules for the promise of free reign once they touched down on wherever they ended up. He could ignore the almost unbearable burn of adrenaline in the deep down channels of his body if he and his knives could go to work. 

Instead he thought of what his meltdown might have cost them. What if, while he’d sobbed and screamed, it had been discovered and deactivated? What if the kidnappers had set it on another drone flying far out into space, just to lead them on a pointless winding chase while they took Bianca who knew where? What if it was too late in any one of a thousand different ways, all because he’d been weak when his daughter had needed him to be strong? 

The soft hiss of the door sliding back registered to Nureyev only slightly, though the voice and it’s words drew his attention immediately. 

“Rita got the signal,” there was a strain to Juno’s voice, like he’d ran to the med bay, like he was feeling the same burn that Nureyev was, “Clear as day, she said, and it’s heading back into occupied space following the drone’s trajectory so it’s got to be her.” 

Nureyev felt no relief, just a solidifying of the need to act inside him. It didn’t erase his mistake. 

He hadn’t even thought of the bracelet until almost twenty minutes had passed, ten long minutes of Juno holding him by the shoulders to keep him up right and directing him to breathe through the tight clutch of panic on his chest. What good was a tracker on your child if you didn’t realise it was there immediately? 

Bianca had adored the teething bracelet when he’d presented it to her months ago, loving the rattle it made and the colours and the way she could gnaw on the soft rubber shape that hung from it. And as long as she didn’t bite down on it too hard, the tracker inside the shape would keep on silently beeping away. 

It was only for while she was very, very young, he would trust her once she was old enough to take care of herself, of course. He didn’t want to be that kind of father. But Nureyev had slept through far too many nightmares to take chances in his waking hours. 

“Nureyev?” Juno prompted, standing close to him now, closer than he’d dared since he’d set foot on this ship. A line had been crossed apparently, “We can find her. As soon as the drone touches down we can go get her and they’ll never expect us. We can win.”

Nureyev looked at him and felt like he’d already lost. 

“Juno,” he murmured, voice level, “When we get Bianca back, I think I should leave and you should take custody of her.”

His thick eyebrow furrowed, “What? Nureyev, come on, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Juno, just listen,” Nureyev exhaled, making himself look the former detective in the eye. From this close up, he could see the injuries he’d taken as their home had been shaken in the sky, less extensive than his own but there were countless nicks and scrapes on his cheeks. Apparently he’d fallen face first into the wall, “Look at what’s happened to her when she was in my care. Whoever’s taken her, they’ve done it to hurt me and she’s suffering because of it. I was a fool to ever think I’d be able to do this with the life I lead, I have too many dogs snapping after the blood on my hands. She deserves a hero for a parent. That just isn’t me.”

Juno’s eye widened, looking beyond stunned, “How hard did you hit your head? Because you’re talking absolute nonsense.”

He was making it so much harder than it needed to be, as always. Nureyev tried to keep his face and voice as cool and level as possible, “Juno, it’s what’s best for Bianca. I’ll do this for her, I’ll bring her back and then I’ll give her a good life. Without me. With you.” 

Juno was shaking his head before he’d even finished speaking, “Nureyev, look, you’ve had pretty much the textbook definition of a shit day but you need to shake this off. This isn’t going to help anything.” 

Nureyev frowned, “Juno, I didn’t expect you to push me back on this. You’ve wanted to be her mother since you stepped on this ship and you’re ready for it. You’ve grown so much and you’ve got something real here on the Carte Blanche. You can make her part of it so easily and she can grow up happy and never need to think anything like this will happen again. You can be what she deserves.”

“Will you please  _ stop?”  _ Juno wasn’t angry, he was pleading, “Just stop. Why would you just assume there’s no place for you too? Why would you just write yourself off like that?”

“Because someone has taken my daughter, Juno! They’ve reached through her to hurt me, I’ve not been careful enough-”

“No parent is careful enough, not all the time-”

“You’re talking about a child skinning their knee when their parent isn’t looking, not being taken halfway across the galaxy-”

“Nureyev, you love her, that’s what matters. And she loves you-”

“And that’s why she needs to go!” the last burst from Nureyev with a force that surprised even him and, god help him, it came with tears, “Because look what happens to people who love me!” 

Juno flinched but he didn’t take a step back, he didn’t turn away with shame or pity, even as those own feelings took root in his own mind, “Peter…”

“Mag, the only example I’ve ever had of parenting and look how that shook out!” Nureyev gave a laugh that was half a sob, “You and you only grew better after you left me behind, doesn’t that tell you everything you need? And now Bianca! I somehow convinced myself that she could be the exception, that I could let my guard down and love her and let her love me. I thought if I worked hard enough it could happen but I just let it all build up like a volcano and now it’s gone off, I could have killed her as surely as I killed Mag!” 

Silence followed his words, like the universe was sucking in a horrified breath. Had he ever said it out loud before? Hadn’t he been afraid of exactly this, that once he said it, he’d realise he’d done something unforgivable?

But if the universe was going to call him a monster then Juno Steel would be his one defendant. The lady who’d seen it happen with his own eyes, the one who’d dealt with countless monsters, he didn’t withdraw and there wasn’t a hint of condemnation in his eyes. His gaze held steady, the only emotion visible there was a fierce kind of love that Nureyev simultaneously yearned towards and shrank away from. 

“Nureyev, my ma said very little right in her whole life but one truth she did know was that you need other people to live for. So when you’re not tough enough, they can be, that’s what she said. So you can’t give up because you’ve got them to worry about,” Juno looked him right in the eye, “And that works both ways. You live for them and they live for you and that’s how we all get by. Bianca isn’t just your person,  _ you  _ are  _ her  _ person too _.  _ And if you take yourself away from her, it all comes crashing down. God, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be the flawless Peter Nureyev. You just have to be you. And so does she. That’s how everyone gets better.” 

Every guiding instinct Nureyev had left told him to deny. To sink back behind his mask and ignore what Juno was saying, ignore the love he saw in his gaze. But he didn’t want to. He just didn’t want to. 

“Yeah, I got better,” Juno continued, “But I didn’t do it without you, Peter. I was always thinking of you, even when I told myself I wasn’t. Because you were the person who really made me believe I could get better. That I didn’t have to die for a cause to be worth something. You woke me up to the people who’d been telling me that for years, you...you became my person.”

Nureyev trembled in the face of that love. The love that wasn’t conditional on whether he was perfect, whether he was collected and in control, whether there were tears on his cheeks or not. It was just being offered. 

“I want to be one of the people you live for, Peter,” Juno murmured and the distance between them seemed closer all of a sudden, “And Bianca’s. But only if you’re okay with that, only if it’s as a family. And only if one of your other people is your own damn self. That was another thing my ma got wrong.”

It would be so easy to lean in, cross those few inches, though they were as significant as a few inches that would walk you off the edge of a cliff. 

He wanted, he couldn’t deny that. But he had to study this want, find out if it was the want that drove him to take things that belonged to other people or the want that had made him look down at the squalling, squirming, seconds old baby in his exhausted arms and realise he couldn’t give her away as he’d planned. 

“Can we speak again after...all this?” Nureyev murmured, “After we get her back safely? Can we come back to this then?”

Nureyev had known a hundred people, some of them people who’d claimed to love him, who would have grown angry. Who’s faces would have darkened and shoulders would have set and a possessiveness would have clouded their eyes. 

But Juno Steel only nodded.

“Sure,” he gave a rough laugh, “Today’s more than enough to deal with. And there will be a tomorrow, Nureyev.”

He’d always known that. He’d lived for tomorrows for much of his life, moving forward to a new face, a new name, a new thing to steal to prove he could. He’d always thought tomorrow was worth showing up for. 

But this felt so much more real. This felt like a promise of tomorrows that would be hard at times, where some would hurt. But these tomorrows were ones he could spend as Peter Nureyev, with people he cared about and who cared about him. 

Both of them jumped at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, fast approaching. Rita drew the door back, her hair flying out of its usual twin buns, her eyes red raw from crying and staring at too many screens in too short a time, smoke practically rising from her fingertips. But she was grinning, in a manic, frantic kind of way.

“The signal stopped! The drone must have landed!”

In an instant, Juno had turned and Nureyev was on his feet, twin expressions of determination and frantic energy.

“Where?” they both barked, not even reacting to the other speaking. 

Rita was bouncing in place, clearly jittery, “The signal held strong the whole way there, I didn’t even need to triangulate when it got messed up with all the other frequencies you find buzzing around an inhabited planet like giant space bees in that one stream, the one that made me scared to eat honey for six weeks even though honey roasted salmon squares are my seventh favourite snack-”

“ _ Rita, please!” _

“Mars!” Rita finally choked up, fighting through her own panicked babble, “She’s on Mars, Mistah Steel, at a place called, um…” she looked down and read her comms screen again, “The Oasis Casino Resort.” 

Nureyev’s eyes met Juno’s, the same expression of sickening deja vu shared between them.

The former detective gave a wayn, humorless smile, “Looks like it’s not just your fault after all.” 

The sense of deja vu, the sensation of falling and waking up in the middle of the night, continued through the family meeting, the crew sat or stood around the kitchen table and a projected schematic of the Oasis. Looking at the tiny, translucent rooms and hallways and grand game halls, floating and shifting whenever the people across from him moved, he felt nearly three years younger. Three years, two heartbreaks and a baby younger. He remembered when he’d felt invincible and so sure of himself, running into victory with a beautiful detective by his side, like something out of an old fashioned movie. He would need some of that old self to get through this, he realised.

Plot points happening all over again but the order shuffled and the roles recast. It was dizzying. And he needed to focus.

“And you’re sure this is up to date, Rita, dear?” Buddy leaned forward, eye focused like a laser on the plans in front of them all.

“Yes, Captain,” she nodded, still bouncing with anxious energy, “Remotely hacked the head of security’s computer so it’s a live feed. Even if they reshuffle all the rooms or something, we’ll know about it. And this…” she tapped something on the comms in her hand, causing a bright white dot to appear somewhere in the depths of the projection, “...is the current location of Bee Bee’s beacon.”

It was sliding slowly at a walking pace through a stairway, up and up. Nureyev’s throat tightened. Was she being dragged? Had they knocked her out with some chemical so she was lying limply in a stranger’s arms? He found himself bleakly hoping for the latter, he didn’t want her to know what was happening.

“They’re taking her upstairs. To this two bit con artist with ideas far above his station, I assume he has the penthouse suite to compensate for his lack of skills,” Buddy said smoothly, leaning forward with an intensity to her gaze that would have given weaker souls heart conditions, “Isn’t it helpful when they give us a lovely, high, phallic pedestal from which to reach up and drag them down?”

“It certainly is convenient,” Jet said cooly, somehow paying attention while calmly assembling a frankly enormous, heavy duty pistol on the counter, “I suggest we enter from the same height, scaling the fire escapes. It will limit potential interactions with innocent bystanders and employees of the resort. The only problem will be exiting once they realise how we have entered.”

“There are trash chutes,” Juno spoke up, sharing a glance with Nureyev that made both of them feel somehow a little better, for a brief second, “We could use those.” 

“Are they big enough to accommodate a person?” Vespa raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” Juno was somehow fighting a smile, despite it all, “Believe me, they are.” 

“That would work,” Jet nodded, “Reverse what they would expect, entering through the exterior and leaving by the interior. We could store the Ruby and my hoverbike in the garage, recoloured and with false plates. Present ourselves as rich visitors, the kind that pass through such a place every day.” 

“This is assuming Engstrom is hiding his activities from the Oasis,” Vespa pointed out, also preparing herself, sliding an oilcloth down the blade of her knife as she spoke, “And they haven’t been told an assault might be incoming.” 

“They won’t be,” Nureyev answered, eyes still fixed on that dot, like he could somehow reach in and give Bianca comfort through it, “Engstrom’s arrangement with the Oasis is hush hush. If he could rely on them to such a degree, he wouldn’t have to pay them under the table for his security privileges. This will be a small operation, low to the ground, only with a few trusted people. Engstrom will be aware how thin the ice under his feet is, no matter how much he paid off the guards after the Utgard Express fiasco.” 

“So you two really did rob the Utgard, huh?” Vespa muttered, mostly to herself, “Always thought you made that up.”

Nureyev shot her a look before continuing, “We have to move quickly, a skeleton plan is all we can manage. He may be planning to move Bianca.” 

“Well it isn’t as if we haven’t played it fast and loose before,” Buddy lifted her chin, “In fact, I’d say it’s when we do the best work. Rita will work through the comms, diverting cameras and blocking the security communication line. I will be posing as our fictitious Oasis patron, the pass will give me access to wherever I might need to go to clear your escape. Jet, Juno, Vespa and Ransom will go up the fire escapes and unleash hell upon this low life who thought he could threaten our family.”

Her eye passed over them all, causing them to straighten their backs and square their shoulders with the sheer magnetism of her words and her gaze. 

“Let’s bring our girl home.”

The Oasis was true to its name, standing and glittering in the middle of complete Martian wasteland, the only object for miles around. Covered in flashing lights and bold colours, it could so easily be a mirage or a hallucination brought on by radiation poisoning, so incongruous did it look with all it’s flashy finery on a backdrop of constant, unbroken mud red dunes and a flat night sky.

They’d touched down under the best cloak that Rita could manage, the Carte Blanche’s bulk hidden a few miles out, right at the edge of the dome but not out of signal range of her hacking equipment. She would stay on board, working remotely, while the rest of them travelled to the Oasis in the Ruby 7, with its new, rush job coat of glittering gold and false plates, all of its features cloaked and hidden as well as just a scant hour of Jet’s time could allow. Rita had given Vespa a kill switch to temporarily plunge the garage cameras into static so there would be no record that there were more people in the car than just the illustrious and completely fictitious Comtesse D’or who had just made a last minute reservation at great expense. 

Already Nureyev was seeing holes, gaps he’d want to plug with far more research and preparation but the time just wasn’t there. As the Oasis loomed in his vision, rapidly approaching until it wasn’t clear who was rushing at who, Nureyev realised how much of this would be riding on sheer dumb luck. 

It was a little easier that Buddy seemed entirely unconcerned, sending them off with a wink as she sped towards the garage entrance, letting them simply leap off the Ruby 7 and hide in the clutter of the building’s back side until the attendants were occupied with her loud and flashy arrival. Before they jumped, Nureyev saw fear flash through Juno’s one eye and he took his hand, squeezing briefly. Whether Juno would have jumped if he hadn’t done that or not, the smile he gave him after they’d hit the cooling sand and caught their breath with their backs pressed to the brick made him glad he’d done it. 

Climbing the fire escape was simple enough, Vespa and her knife leading the way, her hair as vivid as the hotel they were scaling, eyes flashing like the neon lights. Jet was next, climbing smoothly and skillfully despite his size and despite the serious hardware strapped to his back. Juno next, clearly not as comfortable with being a thief just yet but a fierce determination in his eye that showed he wouldn’t be turning back. Nureyev gripped the metal, still warm from the heat of the day’s blistering sun, and what Buddy had said before they broke away from the family meeting. They all cared about Bianca, they were willing to risk everything, not least the search for the Curemother Prime, to get her back. 

He certainly could see the benefit of Bianca having family. 

Over many years of thieving, Nureyev had developed something like an extra sense for when things were about to go wrong, a pull in his stomach that would signal him to duck, a second’s lead on searching for hiding places, a moment to tense his muscles to run as fast as he could or throw himself into their nearest available shadow. 

Apparently it was something inherent to anyone who lived outside of the law because in the same instant both Jet and Vespa stiffened, something cold and sharp seized Nureyev. 

Vespa, as always, was the quickest and most ruthless. Like a bear snatching a salmon from a driver, her hand flashed into the open window just above her head and caught the guard who’d been about to look down and see the four of them by the front of the jacket. With a hard yank, the unfortunate individual went careening down, an almost comical look of surprise on their face, and landed with a muffled crash in the garbage below. Mercifully, the guard was as stunned as the rest of them and didn’t make a noise. 

Juno craned his neck down and, rather adorably thinking that they’d care, whispered, “They’re okay. Knocked out.” 

“Did you see their weapon?” Jet grunted, his expression unchanged, “Heavy stuff.”

“Did you see their  _ uniform? _ ” Nureyev arched an eyebrow, “Not Oasis. It would seem Engstrom has some hirelings. Who knows how many?”

Vespa had ignored them all, poised on the wall like a cat, face tight as she waited for any response from a partner the guard may have had. When one didn’t come, she settled one hand on the windowsill and leaned out like some kind of murderous acrobat so she could address them all.

“Hallways clear. Jet and I will go around the other side of the building, cause a distraction, draw whoever else he’s got patrolling. You two continue on to Engstrom’s room,” her tone brokered no argument, there was no time to weigh up pros and cons. Even Juno swallowed any objections, though God knew there were plenty to make. 

The last majordomo of Engstrom’s had nearly killed the two of them handily, after all, and the late, unlamented Valencia was who he’d kept around when he hadn’t been deliberately pissing off a master thief. But as Vespa took her largest knife between her teeth and slunk in through the window, quickly followed by the hulking yet graceful form of Jet, laden down with blasters, it was whoever had taken Valencia’s place that Nureyev felt sorry for. 

Maybe it wasn’t just Bianca who was glad to have a family.

Juno risked a glance down to him, looking oddly beautiful as he leaned out over the edge of the balcony, bathed in neon colours like Nureyev was seeing him through a stained glass window, as a strange kind of saint. As the goddess he was named for. 

But had Juno ever held so much fear and determination and anxiety in her eye?

Nureyev gave him a nod, trying to look encouraging. Trying to look like all his fears that they weren’t prepared, that they didn’t know their target, that far too much was at risk, were all coming true. 

But all they could do was put one foot in front of the other. Two more floors and they would see their daughter and whatever that would bring. 

Nureyev felt the press of the knives against his skin again, insistent and hungry. 

The Oasis was grand in every sense of the word, they were some height above the ground now, enough that a breeze that smelled of hot sand lifted their hair and snagged the corners of their clothing. As much as every muscle in his body wanted to surge forward and rush to wherever his daughter was, Nureyev forced himself to go slowly, hugging the brickwork and keeping out of the teeth of the wind. Now down to half their numbers, they couldn’t be caught now. 

Finally, the topmost window and, muffled by glass, a voice. Juno and Nureyev crouched on the last platform of the fire escape, ducking under the golden glow emanating from behind the glass and listened, feeling the same burning anger as they recognised it in the same moment. 

“...whether it’s some drunk gaggle of socialites or not, I want confirmation,” a gruff, scraping voice that seemed to have aged more than the time since they’d last heard it would suggest, “Don’t put anything past these charlatans, there’s no way they  _ should  _ know the brat is here but they’ve proven to be inconveniences before now. Go, quickly. Carter said she heard blaster fire.”

A grunt of conformation, footsteps whispering against thick expensive carpet. Juno tensed and rocked on his heels but Nureyev gripped his arm to still him, shaking his head. They couldn’t afford to move before they had a better idea of what they were running into. Not when so much was at stake. 

He maintained that for a whole heartbeat until they both heard what was unmistakably a muffled sob from inside the room. A sob they both knew. 

Nureyev’s other hand was on a knife handle before he was really aware he was even moving, having to snap fast to keep control of himself as something dark and angry, a shadow in red light, thrashed inside him. His fingers tensed on Juno’s arm, feeling an electricity run through him. Hold fast. Stay quiet. Wait for the right moment. 

“Oh, will you be quiet?” Engstrom snapped, his voice less muffled now, as if he’d moved closer to the window. Nureyev tried to build up a mental picture of the room, a map he could work with, though it was hard when the younger, red washed self was fighting him. 

There was the sound of an angry snap, like the sound of a puppy baring its teeth after being backed into a corner and a short cry of pain from Engstrom. 

“You little…” his voice was tight and his shoes made thin sounds on the floor as he backed away, voice dampening. That meant she was close. Nureyev leaned forward a little more. Would he have been fool enough to keep her by the window?

He’d never believed in any being more powerful than himself up until now, not even at the tensest, most teetering brinks of his career, not even in the underground tomb with Miasma. But now he was throwing out desperate murmurs, willing anyone to hear them. Any port in a storm.

Engstrom was still talking and Nureyev took pleasure in imagining him cradling a bitten hand, “More trouble than you’re worth, you brat...no wonder your father taught you no manners, the classless parlour magician...I’d behave before I decide that the pleasure of breaking your father’s teeth and seeing him rot in jail while my name is cleared is worth less to me than the joy of you disappearing down that trash chute. God, you broke the skin, you freak, you vile little monster…”

Nureyev realised a second too late what Juno was doing, though he didn’t think an hour’s preparation would have been able to stop him. He wrenched free of his grip so easily it was as if it had never been, threw open the window and launched himself at Engstrom with a snarl of fury.

“Juno!” he yelled, pointlessly, though his voice was lost in Bianca’s scream and Engstrom’s sound of bewilderment, followed quickly by a loud crash. 

Expensive whiskeys and brandys were soaking into the carpet when Nureyev leapt through the window, knife whistling from his fingers in the direction of the single guard who had been about to raise their blaster in Juno’s direction. It struck them hilt first, dead between the eyes, sinking them in an instant where the blade wouldn’t have had a hope of shearing through all the armour they wore. People who saw only one end of a knife were fools. First rule of thieving. 

“Mama!” Bianca’s voice yelled from behind him, “Daddy!” 

Nureyev couldn’t help it, he turned to her, feeling a relief like cold water on a burn. His treasure was tied cruelly tight to a chair just beside him, within arms reach and so much in him yearned to take her in his arms and promise her it had all been one bad dream. But the monster was yet to be defeated. 

Engstrom was pinned under Juno in the wreckage of a drinks trolley, unsuccessfully defending blows to his face which now resembled a melon that had taken a hard trip down a very long flight of stairs. Panic filled Nureyev’s chest until he saw a small comms unit lying an arms length away from the old man’s grasping hand. Again, he found himself praying that he hadn’t been able to send out a call to the other guards, they needed every second they could snatch now. 

Those seconds were stretching and warping as they tended to do when lives hung on gossamer strands. People seemed to move in slow motion, blows falling with a maniacally comedic exaggerated performance, light tripping and dancing on broken glass on the carpet. It seemed to take Nureyev an age to cross the room, focused on crunching that comms under his heel until it was beyond repair, before Engstrom could grasp it. 

And it took him far too long to realise that wasn’t what Engstrom was intending at all. 

The old man’s grasping fingers finally found the neck of a half empty bottle of some heady liquor the colour of ancient bark. Nureyev saw it at the peak of its arc, catching some fragments of blue from the sign just outside the window, moving so slowly but not slowly enough. 

Bianca cried out as it connected with Juno’s head, almost as awful a sound as the crunch of glass and bone cracking in harmony. Juno rolled, head clutched in his hands, blood seeping from between his fingers, too gripped to even make a noise. 

And Engstrom was sitting up. 

Not a complete fool and running on sheer cruelty, he didn’t lurch for the comms or try to stand. Instead he pulled a blaster from his inside pocket, small but no less deadly for it. And he didn’t bother trying to decide which to aim at, the former detective or the thief. He simply pointed it directly at Bianca. 

“Stop,” he croaked, voice even fainter than before, “Or I shoot.”

Nureyev froze, hand halfway to another knife. Juno looked up with swimming eyes, having enough of a hold on himself to stop too, swaying on his knees. 

“The two of you?” Engstrom seemed to be on some kind of lurid, pain fuelled high, grinning like a haunted waxwork, even as his lips swelled and his gums ran red, “Now even this is beyond my wildest dreams. Guess the two of you stuck together after you left me for dead on that damned train, hmm? And how is that working out, seeing as one of you is missing an eye?”

Nureyev tried to keep his voice calm and still, as if the two of them were still sitting at that card table from years ago. And in some ways they were, though the stakes had ballooned far out of either of their reaches. 

“What is it you want, Engstrom? A ransom? The Ruby Seven? Me? You can take me if you like, I’ll stay as long as you allow Juno to take Bianca far from here.”

Juno gave a pained noise that had nothing to do with his head. Tears dripped helplessly down Bianca’s cheeks but his girl, his brave, brave girl, stayed silent. 

Nureyev tried to feel none of it and just calculated. Could he get to him before his finger squeezed the trigger? Could he throw the knife fast enough, strike his wrist or, better yet, in the neck so his shot went wide? Could he find the right words to reach this bitter, broken man and appease him? 

Every calculation came to the same unthinkable end. 

“And why shouldn’t I have it all,  _ Duke Rose?  _ After everything you two took from me, why shouldn’t I have it all back including your blood, your wife’s and your daughter’s? Is that not what I’m owed after what you did?” his voice sounded like it was on the verge of breaking and his bloodshot eyes, one swollen almost shut, never looked away from Bianca, “I had thought you had more sense than this. To bring a child into our life, the life of a thief. Just more poison in the well…and look where it has ended…”

Nureyev felt bile in his throat, tearing around for more options, another way. Beg? Stall until by some miracle, Jet and Vespa could come crashing through the door? Plead? Pray? Offer him the world? Go back in time and never even set foot on the surface of Mars?

Everything around them slowed. But Juno Steel moved so, so fast. 

He lurched forward and seized the barrel of the blaster between blood stained fingers. But he didn’t try and wrench it away, there was no time for that. He didn’t knock it or send it off course, what if it bounced and hit Bianca by chance? 

Instead he made sure of where it would go. He turned it and pressed the barrel hard to his own skin. 

The sound of the discharge was loud enough to tip the room, as if they were back on the Carte Blanche, twisted and wounded in space. Nureyev screamed, Bianca screamed, Juno screamed and neither sound could be teased out of the others. 

Fortunately there was enough of Nureyev’s mind left to see what Juno needed him to do and to do it. He ran forward and brought his knife hilt down with all the strength he had left at the base of Engstrom’s skull. Fingers slackened, there was a hard, dull sound and he hit the carpet, out cold and maybe even beyond that. The blaster fell uselessly to the floor. 

Nureyev cared for none of it. All that mattered was Juno, trembling in wordless agony, his shoulder smoking. He felt so light in Nureyev’s grip, light enough to come apart or simply fade away. 

Nureyev felt the ghost of cold iron under his fists, felt years old bruises ache again from beating them against that door and against a future that didn’t have his detective in it. 

“Just my shoulder...just hit my shoulder…” Juno managed to grit out from teeth clenched so hard they looked like to shatter, “It’s fine...it’s fine…”

The wound was a horror, a massive burn in a starburst shape but it wasn’t bleeding, just smoking and spitting. He would last, Nureyev told himself, he would last back to the Carte Blanche and Vespa would fix him, she would fix everything. But his arm hung so limp and useless, fingers not twitching and shaking like the rest of him was…

“Get Bianca,” Juno grunted, “Get Bianca, we need to go.”

Nureyev nodded, though his mind felt fractured, hairline cracks forming as he was pulled in different directions, different versions of himself pulling him apart. He stood, Juno’s good arm over his shoulders so he could take the weight of him, walking over to the chair where Bianca was tied.

“Saved me,” Bianca mumbled, looking up at the two of them with tears in her eyes, “Mamma, daddy…”

Nureyev knelt and sheared through her bindings easily, “I’m so sorry, my sweet girl, my treasure, I am so sorry…”

Bianca didn’t seem to be listening, her arms shooting up as soon as they were free, grabbing in the air. Towards both of them. 

Nureyev lifted her and held her between him and Juno, taking one minute of calm in the midst of the storm they’d found themselves in. Juno’s arm tightened around his shoulder, his face buried in Bianca’s hair, leaning heavily against Nureyev. Bianca had one hand on his cheek, the other twisted tight in Nureyev’s earring. And Nureyev circled them both in his arms, like that would always be enough to keep them safe. 

But it wouldn’t. Though he knew one way to ensure it.

A cold numbness descended on his mind, filing away all the adrenaline and hurt and fear with an eerie efficiency. He let Juno hold Bianca with his good arm, disentangling himself and settling the knife more easily into his palm, the hilt fitting into calluses worn onto his hands over years and years. He approached the still limp, still weakly breathing form of Brock Engstrom, everything in him trained on silencing that breathing for good. 

“Nureyev,” Juno’s voice was weak and still brittle with pain, pain the pathetic excuse for a human at his feet had caused. 

“Look away, dear,” he spoke words he was familiar with, though his tone was now flat and dead, “I’m going to stab Mr Engstrom to death now.” 

“Nureyev, no.”

“I said look away, Juno,” Nureyev moved the knife an inch, his mind flicking idly through his decades old banks of knowledge on where to put the point to cause maximum pain. 

“Nureyev,  _ look.” _

He did, turning slightly to see Juno watching him with an eye full of hurt. And their daughter, clinging to his coat, looking at him like she didn’t recognise him. Like she had no idea who he was. Like she was face to face with Engstrom again. 

The knife slipped to the floor and he wouldn’t pick it back up again. The younger self bathed in the red light retreated, maybe for good this time. His shoulders slumped and he exhaled with a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. 

Peter Nureyev made a choice that was very unlike the man he used to be, very unlike the man he’d been brought up as. But it was the kind of choice the man he wanted to be would have made. 

“See, Bee Bee?” Juno murmured, voice rough but a small smile quirking the edge of his mouth as Nureyev walked back towards them, “Your daddy’s one of the good guys.”

“Good guys,” Bianca repeated softly, reaching out to him again. 

Nureyev took her, letting Juno hold his injured half and lean on him, “I suppose, my treasure.” 

“C’mon, let’s get going and find me a nice place to faint,” Juno rasped, again showing off his ability to find some humour while mortally wounded that Nureyev had always admired and been baffled by in equal measures, “Bottom of the garbage chute sounds good right about now. Real classy.”

Nureyev managed a tired laugh in response, shouldering the weight of his small family as they made for the door. 

Another first rule of thieving was to never assume an easy escape. So many thieves tripped up on their exit from the job, too high on the loot in their hands and the thrill of the light at the end of the tunnel. Just because you had the goods didn’t mean life would pull its punches. 

But it seemed, for once, that life had no more blows left to deal. Their escape was smooth as silk, as easy as pickpocketing a drunk man with a blindfold on. Jet and Vespa had taken out every guard on Engstrom’s payroll, Buddy was waiting for them in the Ruby Seven, Rita was running at them to fly into a hug before they’d even parked up in the cargo hold of the Carte Blanche. 

Maybe it was luck. Maybe that rule had grown rusty with time.

Or maybe this was the advantage of being the good guys for once.

“Right. Now do not move, I’m doing one set of stitches so if you open them back up, better get some glue.”

“How the hell am I supposed to not move?” Juno grumbled, wincing as Vespa finished his stitches, “For how long? Can I  _ breathe?” _

“Unfortunately, yes,” Vespa snarled back, slamming down her needle.

Nureyev chuckled to himself from the opposite bed. It was rather nice to know he wasn’t the most irritating patient on the ship. 

The wound on the side of his head, nearly identical to Nureyev’s own, was easy to fix. His shoulder was less so, the skin blackened and flesh raw and red. Vespa could clean it, she could swathe it in bandages so it was less difficult to look at but there was no getting around the fact that it would be a long, painful time in healing. 

Every time he looked at the clean bandages that stiffened Juno’s collar, every time he saw him wince or saw his teeth sink into his lip to bite back a groan, Nureyev was plunged back into that single second when he’d thought he’d lost him. When he’d thought he’d paid an awful price for their daughter’s life. 

It was strange and bitterly unfair, Nureyev reflected, how you often didn’t realise what someone meant to you until they weren’t there. And how certain thieves could still be such stubborn fools and need to be taught that over and over. 

But fools could still learn. People could still change. Juno had taught him that. 

Bianca slept soundly by him, her head pillowed in his lap, her cloth cat tucked under her arm. How that thing had survived, Nureyev had no idea.

Mercifully, his treasure was no worse for wear, just tired, dehydrated and hungry from her time in the drone. Apparently she’d dealt far more damage than she’d taken; Engstrom hadn’t been the only one to feel her teeth. Nureyv felt a fierce pride at that but he would remain on guard for bad dreams as long as he needed to. He was determined to be there when she woke up.

Juno and Vespa were still bickering up until the second when the door shut behind her. And then they both realised in the same moment that they were as alone as they’d been in some time, since their half conversation in the hallway after the auction. Suddenly everything they’d said and hadn’t said was crowding in the space between the two infirmary beds. 

Juno was the first to break the sudden blanket of silence, venturing a weak, lopsided smile and a little laugh. After a moment, Nureyev found himself snorting, giggles pressing up against his chest, like a child in class well aware he shouldn’t be laughing but unable to stop all the same. Juno cackled along with him and it had the sensation of a tap being let go, something leaking away and what was left behind behind able to breathe again.

“God, what’s wrong with us?” Nureyev chortled, wiping at his eyes. 

“Uh, some bastard took our kid and we had to go get her back?” Juno ventured, running a hand through his hair, pushing it into even more disarray. 

“Ah yes, of course,” Nureyev touched her lightly on the temple, “But we did it. We saved the day.” 

“We did,” Juno leaned back against the wall, unsuccessfully hiding how it pained him, “And now...see, that’s the strange thing, isn’t it? No one ever tells you what happens to the heroes after the credits roll or after the story ends. So what do we do now?”

Nureyev looked down at Bianca, humming softly as he curled a lock of her hair around his finger, “Whatever we please, I think. Though these two heros need a place to sleep, actually, seeing as our bunk got dragged out into space.” 

“You could come sleep in my room?” Juno offered quickly, before a light blush touched his cheeks, “I mean...if you were okay with that? I know it might be...weird.”

Nureyev smiled, lifting his eyes to Juno’s, “No. That would be nice, Juno, thank you. Bianca will be pleased. She...she really loves you, you know.”

Juno’s gaze softened and he seemed to feel the pain a little less, “Well...I love her too. You made a great kid, Nureyev.”

Nureyev chuckled, looking down at her, sleeping so peacefully and deeply like she was so sure that the people around her would protect her, “You know, I was so scared of her when I first met her. And I had been for nine months, really, I was just terrified. Everything became so complicated all of a sudden, my own body felt unfamiliar when I was so used to being sure of myself, it was...an unpleasant feeling. I went back to Brahma but I was halfway there before I even realised I was doing it, like something else was pulling me in that direction. I told myself I would find her a nice family with kind people who could take care of her and give her a good life. Where she’d want for nothing. But it was still so hard. And...then I met her. I held her in my own hands and I realised how silly it was to be scared of something so small.” 

“I wish I could have been there,” Juno rasped, voice small but sincere.

Nureyev nodded, “Me too. But it felt like you were, in a way. I told you I kept Bianca for selfish reasons, back on Mars. And I wasn’t lying. I kept her because...well, because she looked so much like you. I wanted to keep part of you in my life, Juno, because I loved you.” 

Juno swallowed, watching him closely, “And now?” 

Nureyev looked up, “And now...now you’re someone new. Someone brave and beautiful and still so infuriatingly stupid...but someone I would be proud to call my daughter’s mother. And, well, I think I’ve fallen in love with you all over again.”

Juno had tears in his eye as he smiled, “Fool. And I love you too.”

Nureyev grinned back, “Fool.”

Juno leaned forward, ignoring Nureyev’s groan of protest, the start of his plea for him to hold still, there would be time later. The kiss was sweet all the same, more unfamiliar than he had expected but he supposed they were both very different people, after all. 

People who could make something good out of this. 

  * Nineteen Years Later -



They had said their goodbyes, there had been tears her little brother Persephone had pretended weren’t there, there had been countless promises to stay safe and keep well and remember everything she’d been taught. 

But still, Nureyev followed her to the shuttle. 

Juno had looked up as he’d gone, as he’d mumbled something about seeing her off, and for a moment it had seemed like he would catch his husband’s shoulder and seat him firmly back down. But he didn’t. Maybe something inside him recognised that they both needed this. 

“Do you have your laser cutter?” Nureyev asked as the two of them walked down the hallway of the Carte Blanche, “Your rope? Your TV remote?”

“Daddy,” Bianca laughed, turning on her heel, having to look up and meet his eyes even at twenty years old, “I have it all, okay? You double checked my pack ten times.”

Nureyev blushed, folding his arms, “Well...a thief can never be too prepared.”

“I know, daddy,” Bianca nudged him with an elbow, “You taught me that.” 

Nureyev sighed, feeling how close that last, final goodbye was and wanting to do anything he could to delay it. “You know, I looked over the plans for the facility you’re targeting and a two man con would-”

“Daddy,” his daughter tilted her head, making those voluminous curls so like her mama’s bounce, and her hand came out to take his, squeezing gently, “It’s gonna be okay. I can do this. And you know it isn’t going to be forever, I’ll always come back and visit.” 

“Often,” Nureyev corrected, feeling his throat tighten as he grasped that hand that had once been barely bigger than his finger, “You’re going to visit often.”

“Sure,” her smile was brilliant, cocky and confident and infections, “When I’m not busy being the most badass thief in the whole universe.” 

“I’m sure,” he had to laugh. Though he really did believe it. 

Her mama’s old coat was a little big on her, the sleeves coming a little past her knuckles, she’d inherited Juno’s small stature. In some ways she still looked like a little girl playing dress up, like this was all a game to find her daddy’s lost pair of glasses or lead her little brothers on an adventure as Andromeda the Chainmail Warrior. 

But Nureyev knew the solar system wasn’t going to know what hit it when Bianca Nureyev swung in on her beam of starlight. 

He just had to let her go. Far easier said than done. 

“I’ll call you when I land, Daddy. Auntie Rita secured the line, right?”

“She did,” Nureyev knew that look in her golden brown eyes, the look he’d never been able to deny, “But I think you have forgotten one thing?”

Bianca frowned, “But I went over the checklist…”

Nureyev grinned, it was uncanny how similar that frown was. He brought his other hand out from behind his back. The cloth cat, Kitty as Juno insisted on calling it, was looking more than a little worse for wear these days, it’s fur faded and three of its eyes missing but still, Bianca gasped in delight when she saw it. 

“Of course!” she giggled, taking it happily and tucking it into the front pocket of the coat that used to be her mama’s, “I thought Idun might have wanted to keep him…”

“No, I think he realised it would be much better off with his big sister,” Nureyev nodded. 

“Well, tell him thanks. And tell him I love him. Both of them, tell them I love them lots and lots. And mama too! And Auntie Vespa and Auntie Buddy and Auntie Rita and Uncle Jet…”

Nureyev was laughing before she was halfway through, “I’ll tell them. But what about your old dad?”

Bianca’s expression softened and she pounced, hugging him so tight his ribs hurt, “I love you, Daddy. Thank you for this.”

Nureyev closed his eyes and pressed his face into her hair, “I love you too, my treasure. And thank  _ you.” _

When she pulled away, it was completely, her hand slipping out of his own. He let it, though it broke his heart. 

“I’ll see you soon, Daddy,” Bianca smiled, giving him a wave before she disappeared into the shuttle that had been her eighteenth birthday present from her Uncle. 

Nureyev waited a long time before he turned away from the window, looking out as he had on so many journeys with his treasure, off to exciting places and interesting people and scores that would make them legends. He had no doubt that the same thing awaited her, now she was alone. 

Still he watched. He watched until her shuttle joined the rest of the stars and for a little longer after that. 

He knew something amazing was waiting for her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment! It would mean so much to me and is really encouraging as a writer. I'm also on Tumblr, @mollymauk-teafleak


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